Lawyers from the United States

"In the great flood of human life that is spawned upon the earth, it is not often that a man is born."

"Liberty is the most jealous and exacting mistress that can beguile the brain and soul of man. She will have nothing from him who will not give her all. She knows that his pretended love serves but to betray. But when once the fierce heat of her quenchless, lustrous eyes has burned into the victim's heart, he will know no other smile but hers."

"With all their faults, trade-unions have done more for humanity than any other organization of men that ever existed. They have done more for decency, for honesty, for education, for the betterment of the race, for the developing of character in man, than any other association of men."

"Man does not live by truth, but by the illusions that his brain conceives."

"It is often said that the accused should be given an immediate trial; that this and subsequent proceedings should not be hindered by delay; that the uncertainties of punishment furnish the criminal with the hope of escape and therefore do not give the community the benefit of the terror that comes with the certainty of punishment that could prevent crime. I can see no basis in logic or experience for this suggestion. It is based on the theory that punishment is not only a deterrent to crime, but the main deterrent. It comes from the idea that the criminal is distinct from the rest of mankind, that vengeance should be sure and speedy and that then crime would be prevented. If this were true and the only consideration to prevent crime, then the old torture chamber and the ancient prison with all its hopelessness and horror should be restored. Logic, humanity and experience would protest against this. If there is to be any permanent improvement in man and any better social order, it must come mainly from the education and humanizing of man. I am quite certain that the more the question of crime and its treatment is studied the less faith men have in punishment."

"I do not consider it an insult, but rather a compliment to be called an agnostic. I do not pretend to know where many ignorant men are sure — that is all that agnosticism means."

"If today you can take a thing like evolution and make it a crime to teach it in the public school, tomorrow you can make it a crime to teach it in the private schools, and the next year you can make it a crime to teach it to the hustings or in the church. At the next session you may ban books and the newspapers. Soon you may set Catholic against Protestant and Protestant against Protestant, and try to foist your own religion upon the minds of men. If you can do one you can do the other. Ignorance and fanaticism is ever busy and needs feeding. Always it is feeding and gloating for more. Today it is the public school teachers, tomorrow the private. The next day the preachers and the lectures, the magazines, the books, the newspapers. After a while, your honor, it is the setting of man against man and creed against creed until with flying banners and beating drums we are marching backward to the glorious ages of the sixteenth century when bigots lighted fagots to burn the men who dared to bring any intelligence and enlightenment and culture to the human mind."

"All men do the best they can. But none meet life honestly and few heroically."

"The purpose of life is living. Men and women should get the most they can out of their lives. The smallest, tiniest intellect may be quite as valuable to society as the largest. It may be still more valuable to itself: it may have all the capacity for enjoyment that the wisest has. The purpose of man is like the purpose of the pollywog — to wriggle along as far as he can without dying; or to hang on until death takes him."

"I don't believe in God because I don't believe in Mother Goose."

"There is no such thing as justice — in or out of court."

"Chase after the truth like all hell and you’ll free yourself, even though you never touch its coat tails."

"I feel as I always have, that the earth is the home and the only home of man, and I am convinced that whatever he is to get out of his existence he must get while he is here."

"I am an Agnostic because I am not afraid to think. I am not afraid of any god in the universe who would send me or any other man or woman to hell. If there were such a being, he would not be a god; he would be a devil."

"Do you, good people, believe that Adam and Eve were created in the Garden of Eden and that they were forbidden to eat from the tree of knowledge? I do. The church has always been afraid of that tree. It still is afraid of knowledge. Some of you say religion makes people happy. So does laughing gas. So does whiskey. I believe in the brain of man. I'm not worried about my soul."

"Calvin Coolidge was the greatest man who ever came out of Plymouth Corner, Vermont."

"When I was a boy I was told that anybody could become President. I’m beginning to believe it."

"History repeats itself. That's one of the things wrong with history."

"I have suffered from being misunderstood, but I would have suffered a hell of a lot more if I had been understood."

"Hell, that's why they make erasers."

"Every government on earth is the personification of violence and force, and yet the doctine of non-resistance is as old as human thought — even more than this, the instinct is as old as life upon the earth."

"That men should ‘turn the other cheek,’ should ‘love their enemies,’ should ‘resist not evil,’ has ever seemed fine to teach to children, to preach on Sundays, to round a period in a senseless oratorical flight; but it has been taken for granted that these sentiments cannot furnish the real foundation for strong characters or great states. p. 13"

"The nation that would to-day disarm its soldiers and turn its people to the paths of peace would accomplish more to its building up than by all the war taxes wrung from its hostile and unwilling serfs."

"To disband the armies and destroy the forts, to diffuse love and brotherhood, and peace and justice in the place of war and strife, could tend only to the building up of character, the elevation of the soul, and the strength and well-being of the state."

"No nation can be really great that is held together by Gatling guns, and no true loyalty can be induced and kept through fear."

"When Voltaire was born really but one church which, of course, was ignorant, tyrannical and barbarous in the extreme. All creeds are alike, and whenever there is but one, and the rulers honestly believe in that one, they are bound to be ignorant, barbarous and cruel. All sorts of heresies were punishable by death. If anyone dared to write a pamphlet or book that questioned any part of the accepted faith, the book was at once consigned to flames and the author was lucky if he did not meet the same fate. Religion was not maintained by the precepts of the priest, but by the prison, the torture chamber and the fagot. Everyone believed; no one questioned. The religious creeds, while strict and barbarous, did not interfere with the personal conduct of any of the rulers. They were left free to act as they pleased, so long as they professed to believe in the prevailing faith."

"Had the modern professors of eugenics had power in France in 1694, they probably would not have permitted such a child to have been born. Their scientific knowledge would have shown conclusively that no person of value could have come from the union of his father and mother. In those days, nature had not been instructed by the professors of eugenics and so Voltaire was born."

"Even Voltaire's father could not make a lawyer out of a genius. To be a good lawyer, one must have a mind and a disposition to venerate the past; a respect for precedents; a belief in the wisdom and the sanctity of the dead. Voltaire had genius, imagination, feeling, and poetry, and these gifts always have been, and always will be, incompatible with the practice of law."

"The usual is always mediocre. When nature takes it into her head to make a man, she fits him with her own equipment and educates him in her own school."

"Whatever else he was during his life, he was never dull, and the world forgives almost anything but stupidity."

"Voltaire was not the first or last man to convert a prison into a hall of fame. A prison is confining to the body, but whether it affects the mind, depends entirely upon the mind. It was while in prison that he changed his name from the one his father gave him — Arouet — to the one he has made famous throughout all time — Voltaire. He said, "I was very unlucky under my first name. I want to see if this one will succeed any better.""

"Pensions are the favors of the powerful, and dangerous to any great intellect. It is only here and there down throughout the ages that a Voltaire is born who does not fall a victim to their blandishments."

"Much of his work he did while confined to his bed. He was always an invalid, always obliged to take great care of himself, living constantly with death just before him, never idle a moment for fear his work would not be done. Probably no man ever lived who assailed the Church and the State with the same wit and keenness that was always at Voltaire's command; and yet in spite of this he managed to live comfortably, accumulate riches and die in peace."

"No iconoclast can possibly escape the severest criticism. If he is poor he is against existing things because he cannot succeed. If he is rich, he is not faithful to his ideals. The world always demands of a prophet a double standard. He must live a life consistent with his dreams, and at the same time must obey the conventions of the world. He cannot be judged either by one or the other, but must be judged by both."

"The truth is always modern and there never comes a time when it is safe to give it voice."

"There are two things that kill a genius — a fatal disease and contentment. When a man is contented he goes to sleep. Voltaire had no chance to be contented, and so he wrote eternally and unceasingly, more than any other man in the history of the world."

"In Geneva lived Jean-Jacques Rousseau. He too was a rebel, mighty in war. Voltaire was keener, wittier, deeper, greater. Rousseau was more fiery, emotional, passionate. Both were really warriors in the same great cause. From their different places, three miles apart, both sent forth their thunderbolts to wake a sleeping world. When the world awakened and shook itself, churches, thrones, institutions, laws, and customs were buried in the wreck. Some charged the wreck to Voltaire, some to Rousseau."

"No doubt there is much immature talking and hasty writing and will always be where liberty of speech and press prevails. The political, religious, and social views of any age and even of the most radical members of society, were born, long before their time. Those who invented the alphabet and the printing press are indirectly responsible for much of the violence of a changing social state; but in the same way, they are responsible for the progress of the world, for the enlightenment, for the civilization, and for all that makes the present better than the past."

"Valiantly he fought on every intellectual battlefield. True he bowed and dodged and lied over and over again, that he still might live and work. Many of his admirers cannot forgive this in the great Voltaire. Rather they would have had him, like Bruno and Servetus, remain steadfast to his faith while his living body was consumed with flames. But, Voltaire was Voltaire, Bruno was Bruno, and Servetus was Servetus. It is not for the world to judge, but to crown them all alike. Each and all lived out their own being, did their work in their own way, and carried a reluctant, stupid humanity to greater possibilities and grander heights."

"The Constitution is a delusion and a snare if the weakest and humblest man in the land cannot be defended in his right to speak and his right to think as much as the strongest in the land."

"You can only protect your liberties in this world by protecting the other man's freedom. You can only be free if I am free."

"As long as the world shall last there will be wrongs, and if no man objected and no man rebelled, those wrongs would last forever. The objector and the rebel who raises his voice against what he believes to be the injustice of the present and the wrongs of the past is the one who hunches the world along."

"Judge: Do you want Mr. Bryan sworn?"

"An agnostic is a doubter. The word is generally applied to those who doubt the verity of accepted religious creeds of faiths. Everyone is an agnostic as to the beliefs or creeds they do not accept. Catholics are agnostic to the Protestant creeds, and the Protestants are agnostic to the Catholic creed. Any one who thinks is an agnostic about something, otherwise he must believe that he is possessed of all knowledge. And the proper place for such a person is in the madhouse or the home for the feeble-minded. In a popular way, in the western world, an agnostic is one who doubts or disbelieves the main tenets of the Christian faith."

"I am an agnostic as to the question of God. I think that it is impossible for the human mind to believe in an object or thing unless it can form a mental picture of such object or thing. Since man ceased to worship openly an anthropomorphic God and talked vaguely and not intelligently about some force in the universe, higher than man, that is responsible for the existence of man and the universe, he cannot be said to believe in God. One cannot believe in a force excepting as a force that pervades matter and is not an individual entity. To believe in a thing, an image of the thing must be stamped on the mind. If one is asked if he believes in such an animal as a camel, there immediately arises in his mind an image of the camel. This image has come from experience or knowledge of the animal gathered in some way or other. No such image comes, or can come, with the idea of a God who is described as a force."

"To say that God made the universe gives us no explanation of the beginnings of things. If we are told that God made the universe, the question immediately arises: Who made God? Did he always exist, or was there some power back of that? Did he create matter out of nothing, or is his existence coextensive with matter? The problem is still there. What is the origin of it all? If, on the other hand, one says that the universe was not made by God, that it always existed, he has the same difficulty to confront. To say that the universe was here last year, or millions of years ago, does not explain its origin. This is still a mystery. As to the question of the origin of things, man can only wonder and doubt and guess."

"Many Christians base the belief of a soul and God upon the Bible. Strictly speaking, there is no such book. To make the Bible, sixty-six books are bound into one volume. These books are written by many people at different times, and no one knows the time or the identity of any author. Some of the books were written by several authors at various times. These books contain all sorts of contradictory concepts of life and morals and the origin of things. Between the first and the last nearly a thousand years intervened, a longer time than has passed since the discovery of America by Columbus."

"One believes in the truthfulness of a man because of his long experience with the man, and because the man has always told a consistent story. But no man has told so consistent a story as nature."

"Can any rational person believe that the Bible is anything but a human document? We now know pretty well where the various books came from, and about when they were written. We know that they were written by human beings who had no knowledge of science, little knowledge of life, and were influenced by the barbarous morality of primitive times, and were grossly ignorant of most things that men know today."

"Can anyone with intelligence really believe that a child born today should be doomed because the snake tempted Eve and Eve tempted Adam? To believe that is not God-worship; it is devil-worship. Can anyone call this scheme of creation and damnation moral? It defies every principle of morality, as man conceives morality. Can anyone believe today that the whole world was destroyed by flood, save only Noah and his family and a male and female of each species of animal that entered the Ark? There are almost a million species of insects alone. How did Noah match these up and make sure of getting male and female to reproduce life in the world after the flood had spent its force? And why should all the lower animals have been destroyed? Were they included in the sinning of man? This is a story which could not beguile a fairly bright child of five years of age today."

"What of the tale of Balaam's ass speaking to him, probably in Hebrew? Is it true, or is it a fable? Many asses have spoken, and doubtless some in Hebrew, but they have not been that breed of asses. Is salvation to depend on a belief in a monstrosity like this?"

"When every event was a miracle, when there was no order or system or law, there was no occasion for studying any subject, or being interested in anything excepting a religion which took care of the soul. As man doubted the primitive conceptions about religion, and no longer accepted the literal, miraculous teachings of ancient books, he set himself to understand nature. We no longer cure disease by casting out devils."

"The fear of God is not the beginning of wisdom. The fear of God is the death of wisdom. Skepticism and doubt lead to study and investigation, and investigation is the beginning of wisdom."

"Autobiography is never entirely true. No one can get the right perspective on himself. Every fact is colored by imagination and dream. The young look forth across the sea to a mirage of fairylands filled with hidden treasures; the aged turn to the fading past, and through the mist and haze that veils once familiar scenes, bygone events assume weird and fanciful proportions."

"One cannot live through a long stretch of years without forming some philosophy of life. As one journeys along he gains experiences and even some ideas. Accumulated opinions and philosophy may be more important to others than the bare facts about how he lived, so my ambition is not so much to relate the occurrences as to record the ideas that life has forced me to accept; and, after all, thoughts, impressions and feelings are really life itself. I should like to think that these reflections might make existence a trifle easier for some of those who may chance to read this story."

"Ancestors do not mean so much. The rebel who succeeds generally makes it easier for the posterity that follows him; so these descendants are usually contented and smug and soft. Rebels are made from life, not ancestors."

"I have always felt that doubt was the beginning of wisdom, and the fear of God was the end of wisdom."

"Every instinct that is found in any man is in all men. The strength of the emotion may not be so overpowering, the barriers against possession not so insurmountable, the urge to accomplish the desire less keen. With some, inhibitions and urges may be neutralized by other tendencies. But with every being the primal emotions are there. All men have an emotion to kill; when they strongly dislike some one they involuntarily wish he was dead. I have never killed any one, but I have read some obituary notices with great satisfaction."

"Wars always bring about a conservative reaction. They overwhelm and destroy patient and careful efforts to improve the condition of man. Nothing can be heard in the cannon's roar but the voice of might. All the safeguards laboriously built to preserve individual freedom and foster man's welfare are blown to pieces with shot and shell. In the presence of the wholesale slaughter of men the value of life is cheapened to the zero point. What is one life compared with the almost daily records of tens of thousands or more mowed down like so many blades of grass in a field? Building up a conception of the importance of life is a matter of slow growth and education; and the work of generations is shattered and laid waste by machine guns and gases on a larger scale than ever before. Great wars have been followed by an unusually large number of killings between private citizens and individuals. These killers have become accustomed to thinking in terms of slaying and death toward all opposition, and these have been followed in turn by the most outrageous legal penalties and a large increase in the number of executions by the state. It is perfectly clear that hate begets hate, force is met with force, and cruelty can become so common that its contemplation brings pleasure, when it should produce pain."

"I had grown tired of standing in the lean and lonely front line facing the greatest enemy that ever confronted man — public opinion."

"I was truly sorry for Mr. Bryan. But I consoled myself by thinking of the years through which he had busied himself tormenting intelligent professors with impudent questions about their faith, and seeking to arouse the ignoramuses and bigots to drive them out of their positions."

"Life cannot be reconciled with the idea that back of the universe is a Supreme Being, all merciful and kind, and that he takes any account of the human beings and other forms of life that exist upon the earth. Whichever way man may look upon the earth, he is oppressed with the suffering incident to life. It would almost seem as though the earth had been created with malignity and hatred. If we look at what we are pleased to call the lower animals, we behold a universal carnage. We speak of the seemingly peaceful woods, but we need only look beneath the surface to be horrified by the misery of that underworld. Hidden in the grass and watching for its prey is the crawling snake which swiftly darts upon the toad or mouse and gradually swallows it alive; the hapless animal is crushed by the jaws and covered with slime, to be slowly digested in furnishing a meal. The snake knows nothing about sin or pain inflicted upon another; he automatically grabs insects and mice and frogs to preserve his life. The spider carefully weaves his web to catch the unwary fly, winds him into the fatal net until paralyzed and helpless, then drinks his blood and leaves him an empty shell. The hawk swoops down and snatches a chicken and carries it to its nest to feed its young. The wolf pounces on the lamb and tears it to shreds. The cat watches at the hole of the mouse until the mouse cautiously comes out, then with seeming fiendish glee he plays with it until tired of the game, then crushes it to death in his jaws. The beasts of the jungle roam by day and night to find their prey; the lion is endowed with strength of limb and fang to destroy and devour almost any animal that it can surprise or overtake. There is no place in the woods or air or sea where all life is not a carnage of death in terror and agony. Each animal is a hunter, and in turn is hunted, by day and night. No landscape is beautiful or day so balmy but the cry of suffering and sacrifice rends the air. When night settles down over the earth the slaughter is not abated. Some creatures are best at night, and the outcry of the dying and terrified is always on the wind. Almost all animals meet death by violence and through the most agonizing pain. With the whole animal creation there is nothing like a peaceful death. Nowhere in nature is there the slightest evidence of kindness, of consideration, or a feeling for the suffering and the weak, except in the narrow circle of brief family life."

"Lost causes are the only ones worth fighting for."

"It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent, but rather the one most adaptable to change."

"I don’t like spinach, and I’m glad I don’t, because if I liked it I’d eat it, and I’d just hate it."

"Another visitor was a lawyer from Clarence Darrow's office. He had come to warn me that I was hurting my case by my persistent defence of Czolgosz; the man was crazy and I should admit it. "No prominent attorney will accept your defence if you ally yourself with the assassin of the President," he assured me; "in fact, you stand in imminent danger of being held as an accessory to the crime." I demanded to know why Mr. Darrow himself did not come if he was so concerned, but his representative was evasive. He continued to paint my case in sinister colours. My chances of escape were few at best, it seemed, too few for me to allow any sentimentality to aggravate it. Czolgosz was insane, the man insisted; everybody could see it, and, besides, he was a bad sort to have involved me, a coward hiding behind a woman's skirts. His talk was repugnant to me. I informed him that I was not willing to swear away the reason, character, or life of a defenceless human being and that I wanted no assistance from his chief. I had never met Darrow, but I had long known of him as a brilliant lawyer, a man of broad social views, an able writer and lecturer. According to the papers he had interested himself in the anarchists arrested in the raid, especially the Isaaks. It seemed strange that he should send me such reprehensible advice, that he should expect me to join the mad chorus howling for the life of Czolgosz."

"Clarence Darrow spoke eleven hours at Bill Haywood's trial, and fifty thousand people marched in Boston alone. Roosevelt said Darrow was an undesirable citizen, so we all wore placards saying, "I am an undesirable citizen." Darrow said, "I speak for the poor, for the weak, for the weary, for that long line of men, who in darkness and despair, have borne the labors of the human race.""

"Clarence Darrow, supposedly a competent thinker, also took a pro-war position."

"The problem of cat versus bird is as old as time. If we attempt to resolve it by legislation who knows but what we may be called upon to take sides as well in the age old problems of dog versus cat, bird versus bird, or even bird versus worm. In my opinion, the State of Illinois and its local governing bodies already have enough to do without trying to control feline delinquency. For these reasons, and not because I love birds the less or cats the more, I veto and withhold my approval from Senate Bill No. 93."

"The whole notion of loyalty inquisitions is a national characteristic of the police state, not of democracy. The history of Soviet Russia is a modern example of this ancient practice. I must, in good conscience, protest against any unnecessary suppression of our rights as free men. We must not burn down the house to kill the rats."

"Communism is the corruption of a dream of justice."

"Words calculated to catch everyone may catch no one."

"What counts now is not just what we are against, but what we are for. Who leads us is less important than what leads us — what convictions, what courage, what faith — win or lose. A man doesn't save a century, or a civilization, but a militant party wedded to a principle can."

"Let's face it. Let's talk sense to the American people. Let's tell them the truth, that there are no gains without pains, that we are now on the eve of great decisions, not easy decisions, like resistance when you're attacked, but a long, patient, costly struggle which alone can assure triumph over the great enemies of man — war, poverty, and tyranny — and the assaults upon human dignity which are the most grievous consequences of each."

"We talk a great deal about patriotism. What do we mean by patriotism in the context of our times? I venture to suggest that what we mean is a sense of national responsibility which will enable America to remain master of her power — to walk with it in serenity and wisdom, with self-respect and the respect of all mankind; a patriotism that puts country ahead of self; a patriotism which is not short, frenzied outbursts of emotion, but the tranquil and steady dedication of a lifetime. The dedication of a lifetime — these are words that are easy to utter, but this is a mighty assignment. For it is often easier to fight for principles than to live up to them."

"True Patriotism, it seems to me, is based on tolerance and a large measure of humility."

"The tragedy of our day is the climate of fear in which we live, and fear breeds repression. Too often sinister threats to the bill of rights, to freedom of the mind, are concealed under the patriotic cloak, of anti-communism."

"The strange alchemy of time has somehow converted the Democrats into the truly conservative party of this country — the party dedicated to conserving all that is best, and building solidly and safely on these foundations. The Republicans, by contrast, are behaving like the radical party — the party of the reckless and the embittered, bent on dismantling institutions which have been built solidly into our social fabric. . . . Our social-security system and our Democratic Party's sponsorship of the social reforms and advances of the past two decades — conservatism at its best. Certainly there could be nothing more conservative than to change when change is due, to reduce tensions and wants by wise changes, rather than to stand pat stubbornly, until, like King Canute, we are engulfed by relentless forces that will always go too far."

"Do you remember that in classical times when Cicero had finished speaking, the people said, "How well he spoke"; but when Demosthenes had finished speaking, they said, "Let us march.""

"It was always accounted a virtue in a man to love his country. With us it is now something more than a virtue. It is a necessity. When an American says that he loves his country, he means not only that he loves the New England hills, the prairies glistening in the sun, the wide and rising plains, the great mountains, and the sea. He means that he loves an inner air, an inner light in which freedom lives and in which a man can draw the breath of self-respect. Men who have offered their lives for their country know that patriotism is not the fear of something; it is the love of something."

"The sound of tireless voices is the price we pay for the right to hear the music of our own opinions. But there is also, it seems to me, a moment at which democracy must prove its capacity to act. Every man has a right to be heard; but no man has the right to strangle democracy with a single set of vocal cords."

"Laws are never as effective as habits."

"Man does not live by words alone, despite the fact that sometimes he has to eat them."

"A hungry man is not a free man."

"The time to stop a revolution is at the beginning, not the end."

"I have been thinking that I would make a proposition to my Republican friends... that if they will stop telling lies about the Democrats, we will stop telling the truth about them."

"Public confidence in the integrity of the Government is indispensable to faith in democracy; and when we lose faith in the system, we have lost faith in everything we fight and spend for."

"In the tragic days of Mussolini, the trains in Italy ran on time as never before and I am told in their way, their horrible way, that the Nazi concentration-camp system in Germany was a model of horrible efficiency. The really basic thing in government is policy. Bad administration, to be sure, can destroy good policy, but good administration can never save bad policy."

"There is no evil in the atom, only in men's souls."

"We can chart our future clearly and wisely only when we know the path which has led to the present."

"To remember the loneliness, the fear and the insecurity of men who once had to walk alone in huge factories, beside huge machines—to realize that labor unions have meant new dignity and pride to millions of our countrymen—human companionship on the job, and music in the home—to be able to see what larger pay checks mean, not to a man as an employee, but as a husband and as a father—to know these things is to understand what American labor means."

"In America any boy may become President, and I suppose it's just one of the risks he takes."

"As citizens of this democracy, you are the rulers and the ruled, the law-givers and the law-abiding, the beginning and the end. Democracy is a high privilege, but it is also a heavy responsibility whose shadow stalks, although you may never walk in the sun."

"Nature is indifferent to the survival of the human species, including Americans."

"Understanding human needs is half the job of meeting them."

"The Republicans have a "me too" candidate running on a "yes but" platform, advised by a "has been" staff."

"My definition of a free society is a society where it is safe to be unpopular."

"Nothing so dates a man as to decry the younger generation."

"If we value the pursuit of knowledge, we must be free to follow wherever that search may lead us. The free mind is not a barking dog, to be tethered on a ten-foot chain."

"I do not believe it is man's destiny to compress this once boundless earth into a small neighborhood, the better to destroy it. Nor do I believe it is in the nature of man to strike eternally at the image of himself, and therefore of God. I profoundly believe that there is on this horizon, as yet only dimly perceived, a new dawn of conscience. In that purer light, people will come to see themselves in each other, which is to say they will make themselves known to one another by their similarities rather than by their differences. Man's knowledge of things will begin to be matched by man's knowledge of self. The significance of a smaller world will be measured not in terms of military advantage, but in terms of advantage for the human community. It will be the triumph of the heartbeat over the drumbeat. These are my beliefs and I hold them deeply, but they would be without any inner meaning for me unless I felt that they were also the deep beliefs of human beings everywhere. And the proof of this, to my mind, is the very existence of the United Nations."

"The early years of the United Nations have been difficult ones, but what did we expect? That peace would drift down from the skies like soft snow? That there would be no ordeal, no anguish, no testing, in this greatest of all human undertakings? Any great institution or idea must suffer its pains of birth and growth. We will not lose faith in the United Nations. We see it as a living thing and we will work and pray for its full growth and development. We want it to become what it was intended to be — a world society of nations under law, not merely law backed by force, but law backed by justice and popular consent."

"I have said what I meant and meant what I said. I have not done as well as I should like to have done, but I have done my best, frankly and forthrightly; no man can do more, and you are entitled to no less."

"It is an ancient political vehicle, held together by soft soap and hunger and with front-seat drivers and back-seat drivers contradicting each other in a bedlam of voices, shouting "go right" and "go left" at the same time."

"A funny thing happened to me on the way to the White House..."

"What do I believe? As an American I believe in generosity, in liberty, in the rights of man. These are social and political faiths that are part of me, as they are, I suppose, part of all of us. Such beliefs are easy to express. But part of me too is my relation to all life, my religion. And this is not so easy to talk about. Religious experience is highly intimate and, for me, ready words are not at hand. I am profoundly aware of the magnitude of the universe, that all is ruled by law, including my finite person. I believe in the infinite wisdom that envelops and embraces me and from which I take direction, purpose, strength."

"I wonder if the chief cause of discord in human affairs is not so much the undesirable nature of beliefs as it is the fighting for them, the competitive indoctrination among them. I believe in liberalism, in individualism, in freedom of conscience. And if there is anything that the whole idea of liberalism contradicts, it is the notion of competitive indoctrination. So I believe that if we really want human brotherhood to spread and increase until it makes life safe and sane, we must also be certain that there is no one true faith or path by which it may spread. Difference is in the nature of life; it is part of our moral universe. Without difference, life would become lifeless. So I reject the idea of conformity, compulsory or complacent, the faith that is swallowed like pills, whole and at once, with no questions asked."

"I believe in helping ourselves and others to see the possibilities in viewpoints other than one’s own, in urging the fullest, the most vigorous use of critical self-examination. Thus, we can learn to unite in our common search for the truth within a better and a happier world. The basic faith in liberty of conscience is by no means exclusive with us. But I believe we are its ordained guardians in this age of assault and anxiety, when so many seem to believe their doubts and to doubt their beliefs. Finally, I should like to live and not just believe these strong words of faith in St. Paul’s letter to the Galatians: “Stand fast, therefore, in the liberty wherewith Christ has made us free and not be entangled with the yoke of bondage."

"A wise man does not try to hurry history. Many wars have been avoided by patience and many have been precipitated by reckless haste."

"Those who corrupt the public mind are just as evil as those who steal from the public purse."

"I have tried to talk about the issues in this campaign... But, strangely enough, my friends, this road has been a lonely road because I never meet anybody coming the other way."

"Well, speaking as a Christian, I would like to say that I find the Apostle Paul appealing and the Apostle Peale appalling."

"The Republican party makes even its young men seem old; the Democratic Party makes even its old men seem young."

"Many of the world’s troubles are not due just to Russia or communism. They would be with us in any event because we live in an era of revolution—the revolution of rising expectations. In Asia, the masses now count for something. Tomorrow, they will count for more. And, for better or for worse, the future belongs to those who understand the hopes and fears of masses in ferment. The new nations want independence, including the inalienable able right to make their own mistakes. The people want respect—and something to eat every day. And they want something better for their children."

"He who slings mud generally loses ground."

"What a man knows at fifty that he did not know at twenty is, for the most part, incommunicable. The laws, the aphorisms, the generalizations, the universal truths, the parables and the old saws — all of the observations about life which can be communicated handily in ready, verbal packages — are as well known to a man at twenty who has been attentive as to a man at fifty. He has been told them all, he has read them all, and he has probably repeated them all before he graduates from college; but he has not lived them all. What he knows at fifty that he did not know at twenty boils down to something like this: The knowledge he has acquired with age is not the knowledge of formulas, or forms of words, but of people, places, actions — a knowledge not gained by words but by touch, sight, sound, victories, failures, sleeplessness, devotion, love — the human experiences and emotions of this earth and of oneself and other men; and perhaps, too, a little faith, and a little reverence for things you cannot see."

"All progress has resulted from people who took unpopular positions. All change is the result of a change in the contemporary state of mind. Don't be afraid of being out of tune with your environment, and above all pray God that you are not afraid to live, to live hard and fast. To my way of thinking it is not the years in your life but the life in your years that count in the long run. You'll have more fun, you'll do more and you'll get more, you'll give more satisfaction the more you know, the more you have worked, and the more you have lived. For yours is a great adventure at a stirring time in the annals of men."

"Unreason and anti-intellectualism abominate thought. Thinking implies disagreement; and disagreement implies nonconformity; and nonconformity implies heresy; and heresy implies disloyalty—so, obviously, thinking must be stopped. But shouting is not a substitute for thinking and reason is not the subversion but the salvation of freedom."

"In matters of national security emotion is no substitute for intelligence, nor rigidity for prudence. To act coolly, intelligently and prudently in perilous circumstances is the test of a man — and also a nation."

"We mean by "politics" the people's business — the most important business there is."

"Some of us worship in churches, some in synagogues, some on golf courses … yet we are all children of the same Judaic-Christian civilization, with much the same religious background basically."

"We hear the Secretary of State boasting of his brinkmanship — the art of bringing us to the edge of the abyss."

"The idea that you can merchandise candidates for high office like breakfast cereal — that you can gather votes like box tops — is, I think, the ultimate indignity to the democratic process."

"There is a new America every morning when we wake up. It is upon us whether we will it or not. The new America is the sum of many small changes — a new subdivision here, a new school there, a new industry where there had been swampland — changes that add up to a broad transformation of our lives. Our task is to guide these changes. For, though change is inevitable, change for the better is a full-time job."

"Our nation stands at a fork in the political road. In one direction lies a land of slander and scare; the land of sly innuendo, the poison pen, the anonymous phone call and hustling, pushing, shoving; the land of smash and grab and anything to win. This is Nixonland. But I say to you that it is not America."

"I'm not an old, experienced hand at politics. But I am now seasoned enough to have learned that the hardest thing about any political campaign is how to win without proving that you are unworthy of winning."

"I have learned that In quiet places, reason abounds, that in quiet people there is vision and purpose, that many things are revealed to the humble that are hidden from the great."

"Fill the moral vacuum, the rational vacuum, we must; reconvert a population soaked in the spirit of materialism to the spirit of humanism we must, or bit by bit we too will take on the visage of our enemy, the neo-heathens."

"Men may be born free; they cannot be born wise; and it is the duty of the university to make the free wise."

"Every age needs men who will redeem the time by living with a vision of the things that are to be."

"We live in a time when automation is ushering in a second industrial revolution, and the powers of the atom are about to be harnessed for ever greater production. We live at a time when even the ancient spectre of hunger is vanishing. This is the age of abundance! Never in history has there been such an opportunity to show what we can do to improve the quality of living now that the old, terrible, grinding anxieties of daily bread, of shelter and raiment are disappearing."

"We must recover the element of quality in our traditional pursuit of equality. We must not, in opening our schools to everyone, confuse the idea that all should have equal chance with the notion that all have equal endowments."

"Respect for intellectual excellence, the restoration of vigor and discipline to our ideas of study, curricula which aim at strengthening intellectual fiber and stretching the power of young minds, personal commitment and responsibility — these are the preconditions of educational recovery in America today; and, I believe, they have always been the preconditions of happiness and sanity for the human race."

"You will find that the truth is often unpopular and the contest between agreeable fancy and disagreeable fact is unequal. For, in the vernacular, we Americans are suckers for good news."

"Freedom is not an ideal, it is not even a protection, if it means nothing more than freedom to stagnate, to live without dreams, to have no greater aim than a second car and another television set."

"With the supermarket as our temple and the singing commercial as our litany, are we likely to fire the world with an irresistible vision of America's exalted purpose and inspiring way of life?"

"The elephant has a thick skin, a head full of ivory, and as everyone who has seen a circus parade knows, proceeds best by grasping the tail of its predecessor."

"We have confused the free with the free and easy."

"The first principle of a free society is an untrammeled flow of words in an open forum."

"She would rather light a candle than curse the darkness, and her glow has warmed the world."

"You are in the courtroom of world opinion…. All right, sir, let me ask you one simple question: Do you, Ambassador Zorin, deny that the U.S.S.R. has placed and is placing medium- and intermediate-range missiles and sites in Cuba? Yes or no — don't wait for the translation — yes or no?" [The Soviet representative refuses to answer.] "You can answer yes or no. You have denied they exist. I want to know if I understood you correctly. I am prepared to wait for my answer until hell freezes over, if that's your decision. And I am also prepared to present the evidence in this room."

"Happily for us, students have not tried to overthrow the Government of the United States, but they certainly are making their views felt in public affairs. I think especially of the participation of American students in the great struggle to advance civil and human rights in America. Indeed, even a jail sentence is no longer a dishonor but a proud achievement."

"It will be helpful in our mutual objective to allow every man in America to look his neighbor in the face and see a man — not a color."

"For my part I believe in the forgiveness of sin and the redemption of ignorance."

"After four years at the United Nations I sometimes yearn for the peace and tranquillity of a political convention."

"She thought of herself as an ugly duckling, but she walked in beauty in the ghettos of the world, bringing with her the reminder of her beloved St. Francis, "It is in the giving that we receive." And wherever she walked beauty was forever there."

"A politician is a statesman who approaches every question with an open mouth."

"Nixon is the kind of politician who would cut down a redwood tree, then mount the stump for a speech on conservation."

"The Republicans stroke platitudes until they purr like epigrams."

"An editor is someone who separates the wheat from the chaff and then prints the chaff."

"The great aristocrat, the beloved leader, the profound historian, the gifted painter, the superb politician, the lord of language, the orator, the wit—yes, and the dedicated bricklayer—behind all of them was a simple man of faith, steadfast in defeat, generous in victory, resigned in age, trusting in a loving providence, and committing his achievements and his triumphs to a higher power."

"A diplomat's life is made up of three ingredients: protocol, Geritol and alcohol."

"We travel together, passengers on a little spaceship, dependent on its vulnerable reserves of air and soil; all committed, for our safety, to its security and peace; preserved from annihilation only by the care, the work and the love we give our fragile craft. We cannot maintain it half fortunate, half miserable, half confident, half despairing, half slave — to the ancient enemies of man — half free in a liberation of resources undreamed of until this day. No craft, no crew can travel safely with such vast contradictions. On their resolution depends the survival of us all."

"On this shrunken globe men can no longer live as strangers. Men can war against each other as hostile neighbors, as we are determined not to do; or they can co-exist in frigid isolation, as we are doing. But our prayer is that men everywhere will learn, finally, to live as brothers, to respect each other's differences, to heal each other's wounds, to promote each other's progress, and to benefit from each other's knowledge."

"Because we believe in the free mind we are also fighting those who, in the name of anti-Communism, would assail the community of freedom itself."

"You can tell the size of a man by the size of the thing that makes him mad."

"A beauty is a woman you notice; a charmer is one who notices you."

"There was a time when a fool and his money were soon parted, but now it happens to everybody."

"There are worse things than losing an election; the worst thing is to lose one's convictions and not tell the people the truth."

"The best reason I can think of for not running for President of the United States is that you have to shave twice a day."

"I am a lawyer. I think that one of the most fundamental responsibilities, not only of every citizen, but particularly of lawyers, is to give testimony in a court of law, to give it honestly and willingly, and it will be a very unhappy day for Anglo-Saxon justice when a man, even a man in public life, is too timid to state what he knows and what he has heard about a defendant in a criminal trial for fear that defendant might be convicted. That would to me be the ultimate timidity."

"The journey of a thousand leagues begins with a single step. So we must never neglect any work of peace within our reach, however small."

"Accuracy to a newspaper is what virtue is to a lady; but a newspaper can always print a retraction."

"Peace is the one condition of survival in this nuclear age."

"The art of government has grown from its seeds in the tiny city-states of Greece to become the political mode of half the world. So let us dream of a world in which all states, great and small, work together for the peaceful flowering of the republic of man."

"I can't say that I love it with a fierce passion — indeed as a profession it's rather disappointing since it is not a profession at all, but rather a business service station and repair shop."

"Some people approach every problem with an open mouth."

"An Independent is someone who wants to take the politics out of politics."

"It's hard to lead a cavalry charge if you think you look funny on a horse."

"Never run against a war hero."

"The whole basis of the United Nations is the right of all nations great or small — to have weight, to have a vote, to be attended to, to be a part of the twentieth century."

"Communism is the death of the soul. It is the organization of total conformity — in short, of tyranny — and it is committed to making tyranny universal."

"Whenever I hear one of these old guard leaders on the other side talking about cutting taxes, when he knows it means weakening the nation, I always think of that story about the tired old capitalist who was driving alone in his car one day, and finally, he said "James, drive over the bluff; I want to commit suicide.""

"Ignorance is stubborn and prejudice dies hard."

"I have sometimes said that flattery is all right, Mr. President, if you don't inhale it."

"Some war hero is always getting in my way."

"Gentlemen, there is business before your house and I propose to get right to it, obeying, as far as I can, what seems to me becoming to be known as the Republican law of gravity."

"I think that one of our most important tasks is to convince others that there's nothing to fear in difference; that difference, in fact, is one of the healthiest and most invigorating of human characteristics without which life would become meaningless. Here lies the power of the liberal way: not in making the whole world Unitarian, but in helping ourselves and others to see some of the possibilities inherent in viewpoints other than one's own; in encouraging the free interchange of ideas; in welcoming fresh approaches to the problems of life; in urging the fullest, most vigorous use of critical self-examination."

"Freedom rings where opinions clash."

"That's not enough, madam; we need a majority!"

"Saskatchewan is much like Texas — except it's more friendly to the United States."

"The human race has improved everything but the human race."

"That which seems the height of absurdity in one generation often becomes the height of wisdom in the next."

"Man is a strange animal. He generally cannot read the handwriting on the wall until his back is up against it."

"Though Americans talk a good deal about the virtue of being serious, they generally prefer people who are solemn over people who are serious. In politics, the rare candidate who is serious, like Adlai Stevenson, is easily overwhelmed by one who is solemn, like General Eisenhower. This is probably because it is hard for most people to recognize seriousness, which is rare, especially in politics, but comfortable to endorse solemnity, which is as commonplace as jogging."

"Moving among wretched people in mean places, as I often saw him do, he had the impulses of a saint but not the serenity."

"Adlai Stevenson squats to piss."

"He was one of the most admired men of his time — and one of the most perplexing, a paradox within himself. Twice he sought his nation's highest office; yet he always thought of the presidency as a "dread responsibility." He was a politician without a politician's ways; instead of grinning gamely when, during one of his campaigns, a little girl handed him a stuffed baby alligator, Stevenson could only gape and exclaim, "For Christ's sake, what's this?" He was a man of rare humor, often expressed in self-deprecating terms. Responding to criticism that he was too intellectual, that he talked over the heads of the voters, he tossed out a Latinism: Via ovum cranium difficilis est (The way of the egghead is hard)."

"He had that quality for which the Africans, who know how to appreciate it, have found a special term. "Nommo" is the Bantu word for the gift of making life rather larger and more vivid for everyone else."

"As an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches one."

"Let today be the first day of a new American Revolution - a Digital Revolution, a revolution built not on blood and conflict, but on language and reason and our faith in each other."

"I worry about my child and the Internet all the time, even though she's too young to have logged on yet. Here's what I worry about. I worry that 10 or 15 or 20 years from now she will come to me and say, "Daddy, where were you when they took freedom of the press away from the Internet?""

"The decisions we make about the Internet don't affect just the Internet – they are answers to basic questions about the relationship each citizen has to the government and about the extent to which we trust one another with the full range of fundamental rights granted by the Constitution."

"The remedy for the abuse of free speech is more speech."

"Striking a balance in favor of individual rights has always been the right decision for us and that it remains so even when technology gives us new ways to exercise those rights. Individual liberty has never weakened us; freedom of speech, enhanced by the Net, will only make us stronger."

"In short, individual freedom of speech leads to a stronger society. But knowing that principle is not enough. You have to know how to put it to use on the Net."

"When I worked as a journalist in the 1980s, I was constantly reminded by sources of the common asumption that a newspaper or magazine article wouldn't get things right or would distort the facts to reflect a particular bias. [...] The major newspapers, magazines, and television networks, which are typically, if not always, components of larger corporate organizations, are increasingly regarded by Americans as just another special interest."

"But don't confuse it with the first vision of "electronic democracy" [...] one day, we were told [in 1992], we'd listen to pundits and politicians debate the issues, and then we'd vote, maybe by pointing our remotes at our TV or computer monitors. Radical pluralism is something different. It's what happens when you put the power of a mass medium—computer communications—into the hands of individual citiens who could never have afforded creative access to other mass media like TV or newspapers. Everyone is now a "content producer"."

"It's easy for a senator or a government official to blur the line between speech that's offensive and speech that lacks social value, yet in practice it's often the offensive speech that's the most valuable."

"I first became aware of this larger phenomenon in the wake of the bombing of a federal office building in Oklahoma City. In the days and weeks to follow, I got dozens of calls from the press asking me whether there was legislation pending to ban bomb information on the Net. [...] In reality, of course, the "Internet as threat" meme was generated and disseminated primarily by the press itself."

"The more you impose such liability, the greater the incentives you create for providers to become content police, and you undermine what for many and perhaps most users is the chief value of the Net: direct communication with the rest of the world."

"Leaving aside the issue of whether the comments about Arata and Branham were grounded in hostility toward their gender (rather than hostility toward them as individuals), it seemed clear that what the OCR wants to ban here is not "written conduct" but speech. By classifying it as "conduct," the OCR hoped to bypass the First Amendment's protections."

"Perhaps the most likely scenario is this: At some near-future date, perhaps as early as 2010, individuals may no longer be able to do the kinds of things they routinely do with their digital tools in 2003. [...] You can't overestimate the extent to which the two factions are bot pro-copyright [...]. One thing the Tech Faction and the Content Faction have in common is that both supported the passage of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act in 1998."

"[The online users reaction to the cyberporn panic] may have been far more effective than a planned event would have been, however. It had vigor, spontaneity, and popular sentiment behind it and was driven by passion and not by calculated maneuvering. And it proved the power of online communities to take on the traditional media establishment, once the playing field has been leveled. The WELL and the World Wide Web and Usenet had leveled the field."

"What adds to the uncertainty, Hansen said, is that the "defenses" provided by the statute—that is, the things you have to do to avoid criminal liability—are defined in terms of whatever filtering or screening technologies happen to be available at any given moment [...] use of "reasonable and effective measures under current technology". As a result, Hansen said, the defenses will change every time the technology changes."

"That is why I found the tactics of the theocratic social conservatives deeply offensive. They were afraid that their convictions about pornography were unlikely to sway the majority of citizens in this country—so afraid, in fact, that they contrived a crisis (the threat to children posed by cyperporn) and even went so far as to help craft and position a purportedly objective (but in fact fraudulent) study whose real, cynical purpose was to promote a panic-driven anti-indecency legislative agenda."

"We have built no national temples but the Capitol; we consult no common oracle but the Constitution."

"The courage of New England was the "courage of conscience." It did not rise to that insane and awful passion, the love of war for itself."

"The final end of government is not to exert restraint but to do good."

"There was a state without king or nobles; there was a church without a bishop; there was a people governed by grave magistrates which it had selected, and by equal laws which it had framed."

"All that happens in the world of Nature or Man, — every war; every peace; every hour of prosperity; every hour of adversity; every election; every death ; every life; every success and every failure, — all change, — all permanence, — the perished leaf; the unutterable glory of stars, — all things speak truth to the thoughtful spirit."

"Happy is he who has laid up in his youth, and held fast in all fortune, a genuine and passionate love of reading."

"We join ourselves to no party that does not carry the flag, and keep step to the music of the Union."

"Its constitution the glittering and sounding generalities of natural right which make up the Declaration of Independence."

"A book is the only immortality."

"Neither irony nor sarcasm is argument."

"I feel your pain."

"Now, I don't have all the answers, but I do know the old ways don't work. Trickledown economics has sure failed. And big bureaucracies, both private and public, they've failed too. That's why we need a new approach to government, a government that offers more empowerment and less entitlement. More choices for young people in the schools they attend- in the public schools they attend. And more choices for the elderly and for people with disabilities and the long-term care they receive. A government that is leaner, not meaner; a government that expands opportunity, not bureaucracy; a government that understands that jobs must come from growth in a vibrant and vital system of free enterprise."

"Every year Congress and the president sign laws that make us do more things and gives us less money to do it with. I see people in my state, middle-class people — their taxes have gone up in Washington and their services have gone down while the wealthy have gotten tax cuts. I have seen what's happened in this last four years when — in my state, when people lose their jobs there's a good chance I'll know them by their names. When a factory closes, I know the people who ran it. When the businesses go bankrupt, I know them. And I've been out here for 13 months meeting in meetings just like this ever since October, with people like you all over America, people that have lost their jobs, lost their livelihood, lost their health insurance."

"End welfare as we know it."

"When I was in England I experimented with marijuana a time or two -- and didn't like it -- and didn't inhale and never tried inhaling again."

"Our democracy must be not only the envy of the world but the engine of our own renewal. There is nothing wrong with America that cannot be cured by what is right with America."

"Posterity is the world to come; the world for whom we hold our ideals, from whom we have borrowed our planet, and to whom we bear sacred responsibility. We must do what America does best: offer more opportunity to all and demand responsibility from all."

"You know, we can't be so fixated on our desire to preserve the rights of ordinary Americans to legitimately own handguns and rifles -- it's something I strongly support -- we can't be so fixated on that that we are unable to think about the reality of life that millions of Americans face on streets that are unsafe, under conditions that no other nation—no other nations—has permitted to exist. And at some point, I still hope that the leadership of the National Rifle Association will go back to doing what it did when I was a boy and which made me want to be a lifetime member because they put out valuable information about hunting and marksmanship and safe use of guns. But just to know of the conditions we face today in a lot of our cities and other places in this country and the enormous threat to public safety is amazing."

"Let me tell you something -- wait a minute. You know one things that's wrong with this country? Everybody gets a chance to have their fair say. My budget did more to fight AIDS than any in history, and we're having to put up with this. (Applause.) Tell them to let me talk. (Applause.) If you want to give a speech -- go out there and raise your own crowd. We'll be glad to listen to you. (Applause.) So there were those -- (interruption) -- I'll make you a deal. I'll ignore them if you will. (Applause.)"

"When we got organized as a country and we wrote a fairly radical Constitution with a radical Bill of Rights, giving a radical amount of individual freedom to Americans, it was assumed that the Americans who had that freedom would use it responsibly. That is, when we set up this country, abuse of people by Government was a big problem. So if you read the Constitution, it's rooted in the desire to limit the ability of — Government's ability to mess with you, because that was a huge problem. It can still be a huge problem. But it assumed that people would basically be raised in coherent families, in coherent communities, and they would work for the common good, as well as for the individual welfare."

"All Americans, not only in the States most heavily affected but in every place in this country, are rightly disturbed by the large numbers of illegal aliens entering our country. The jobs they hold might otherwise be held by citizens or legal immigrants. The public service they use impose burdens on our taxpayers. That's why our administration has moved aggressively to secure our borders more by hiring a record number of new border guards, by deporting twice as many criminal aliens as ever before, by cracking down on illegal hiring, by barring welfare benefits to illegal aliens. In the budget I will present to you, we will try to do more to speed the deportation of illegal aliens who are arrested for crimes, to better identify illegal aliens in the workplace as recommended by the commission headed by former Congresswoman Barbara Jordan. We are a nation of immigrants. But we are also a nation of laws. It is wrong and ultimately self-defeating for a nation of immigrants to permit the kind of abuse of our immigration laws we have seen in recent years, and we must do more to stop it."

"I say this to the militias and all others who believe that the greatest threat to freedom comes from the Government instead of from those who would take away our freedom: If you say violence is an acceptable way to make change, you are wrong. If you say that Government is in a conspiracy to take your freedom away, you are just plain wrong. If you treat law enforcement officers who put their lives on the line for your safety every day like some kind of enemy army to be suspected, derided, and if they should enforce the law against you, to be shot, you are wrong. If you appropriate our sacred symbols for paranoid purposes and compare yourselves to colonial militias who fought for the democracy you now rail against, you are wrong. How dare you suggest that we in the freest nation on Earth live in tyranny! How dare you call yourselves patriots and heroes!"

"The road to tyranny, we must never forget, begins with the destruction of the truth."

"Shalom, haver."

"The last time I checked, the Constitution said, 'of the people, by the people and for the people.' That's what the Declaration of Independence says."

"Our rich texture of racial, religious and political diversity will be a Godsend in the 21st century. Great rewards will come to those who can live together, learn together, work together, forge new ties that bind together."

"We know we’ve got about six years to turn this juvenile crime thing around. And my successors will not be giving speeches about the wonderful opportunities of the global economy; they’ll be trying to keep body and soul together for people on the streets of these cities."

"We know that if this can be done in Boston, it can be done in every community, in every neighborhood of every size in the United States. And we ask the United States Congress to do what you've done here in Massachusetts: cross all party lines, throw politics away, throw the speeches in the trash can, join hands. Let's do what works and make America the safe place it has to be."

"Abigail, do you favor the United States Army abolishing the affirmative action program that produced Colin Powell? Yes or no? Yes or no?"

"Now, I have to go back to work on my State of the Union speech. And I worked on it until pretty late last night. I want to say one thing to the American people. I want you to listen to me. I'm going to say this again. I did not have sexual relations with that woman, Miss Lewinsky. I never told anybody to lie, not a single time, never. These allegations are false, and I need to go back to work for the American people."

"Next, we must help parents protect their children from the gravest health threat that they face -- an epidemic of teen smoking, spread by multimillion dollar marketing campaigns. I challenge Congress -- let's pass bipartisan, comprehensive legislation that will improve public health, protect our tobacco farmers and change the way tobacco companies do business forever. Let's do what it takes to bring teen smoking down. Let's raise the price of cigarettes by up to $1.50 a pack over the next 10 years with penalties on the tobacco industry if it keeps marketing to our children."

"No one wants to get this matter behind us more than I do—except maybe all the rest of the American people."

"It depends on what the meaning of the word 'is' is. If the—if he—if 'is' means is and never has been, that is not—that is one thing. If it means there is none, that was a completely true statement. ... Now, if someone had asked me on that day, are you having any kind of sexual relations with Ms. Lewinsky, that is, asked me a question in the present tense, I would have said no. And it would have been completely true."

"Indeed, I did have a relationship with Miss Lewinsky that was not appropriate. In fact, it was wrong. It constituted a critical lapse in judgment and a personal failure on my part for which I am solely and completely responsible. But I told the grand jury today and I say to you now that at no time did I ask anyone to lie, to hide or destroy evidence or to take any other unlawful action."

"All of you know I'm having to become quite an expert in this business of asking for forgiveness. And I ----. It gets a little easier the more you do it. And if you have a family, an Administration, a Congress and a whole country to ask, you're going to get a lot of practice. But I have to tell that in these last days it has come home to me again, something I first learned as President, but it wasn't burned in my bones -- and that is that in order to get it, you have to be willing to give it. And all of us -- the anger, the resentment, the bitterness, the desire for recrimination against people you believe have wronged you -- they harden the heart and deaden the spirit and lead to self-inflicted wounds. And so it is important that we are able to forgive those we believe have wronged us, even as we ask for forgiveness from people we have wronged. And I heard that first -- first -- in the Civil Rights Movement. Love thy neighbor as thyself."

"Whether our ancestors came here on the Mayflower, on slave ships, whether they came to Ellis Island or LAX in Los Angeles, whether they came yesterday or walked this land a thousand years ago our great challenge for the 21st century is to find a way to be One America. We can meet all the other challenges if we can go forward as One America."

"A hundred years from tonight, another American president will stand in this place and report on the State of the Union. He—or she—(applause)—he or she will look back on a 21st century shaped in so many ways by the decisions we make here and now. So let it be said of us then that we were thinking not only of our time, but of their time; that we reached as high as our ideals; that we put aside our divisions and found a new hour of healing and hopefulness; that we joined together to serve and strengthen the land we love."

"Secretary-General Annan spoke for all of us ... when he said that ethnic cleansers and mass murderers can find no refuge in the United Nations, no source of comfort or justification in its charter. We must do more to make these words real. Of course, we must approach this challenge with some considerable degree of humility. It is easy to say, "Never again," but much harder to make it so. Promising too much can be as cruel as caring too little. But difficulties, dangers, and costs are not an argument for doing nothing. When we are faced with deliberate, organized campaigns to murder whole peoples or expel them from their land, the care of victims is important but not enough. We should work to end the violence."

"We want to live forever, and we're getting there."

"(George H. W. Bush) won't take the lead in protecting the environment and creating new jobs in environmental technologies for the 21st century, but I will. And you know what else? He doesn't have Al Gore, and I do."

"It is time to heal America. And so we must say to every American: Look beyond the stereotypes that blind us. We need each other. All of us, we need each other. We don't have a person to waste. And yet for too long politicians have told the most of us that are doing all right that what's really wrong with America is the rest of us. Them. Them, the minorities. Them, the liberals. Them, the poor. Them, the homeless. Them, the people with disabilities. Them, the gays. We've gotten to where we've nearly "them"ed ourselves to death. Them and them and them. But this is America. There is no them; there's only us. One nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty, and justice, for all."

"My grandfather just had a grade-school education. But in that country store he taught me more about equality in the eyes of the Lord than all my professors at Georgetown; more about the intrinsic worth of every individual than all the philosophers at Oxford; and he taught me more about the need for equal justice than all the jurists at Yale Law School."

"I end tonight where it all began for me: I still believe in a place called Hope."

"Shakespeare wrote, Einstein thought, Atatürk built."

"We are fortunate to be alive at this moment in history."

"You know, if I were a single man, I might ask that mummy out. That's a good-looking mummy."

"Yesterday is yesterday. If we try to recapture it, we will only lose tomorrow."

"History has shown us, that you can't allow the mass extermination of people, and just sit by and watch it happen."

"Let me tell you what the facts are. Now, we had a hard time getting those facts into these debates, because they're so inconvenient for the other side. And I admire that about the Republicans: The evidence does not faze them. ... They are not bothered at all by the facts. And you've got to kind of give it to them. ... They know what they're for."

"A preemptive action today, however well-justified, may come back with unwelcome consequences in the future. And because ... I've done this. I've ordered these kinds of actions — I don't care how precise your bombs and your weapons are, when you set them off, innocent people will die."

"Because Israel believes, when it comes right down to it America is the only big country that cares whether they live or die. That's why I can say, give up the West Bank, because the Israelis knew that if the Iraqi or the Iranian army came across the Jordan river, I would personally grab a rifle, get in a ditch, and fight and die, and I would."

"You should have disagreements with your leaders and your colleagues, but if it becomes immediately a question of questioning people's motives, and if immediately you decide that somebody who sees a whole new situation differently than you must be a bad person and somehow twisted inside, we are not going to get very far in forming a more perfect union."

"And I think America, if we're ever going to truly defeat terror without changing the character of our own country or compromising the future of our children, has got to not only say, "Okay, I want to shoulder my responsibilities, I want to create my share of opportunities" but we have to find a way to define the future in terms of a humanity that goes beyond our country, that goes beyond any particular race, that goes beyond any particular religion."

"I felt like a pickle stepping into history."

"People like you always help the far-right, because you like to hurt people, and you like to talk about how bad people are and all their personal failings."

"You know, I have repeatedly defended President Bush against the left on Iraq, even though I think he should have waited until the U.N. inspections were over. I don't believe he went in there for oil. We didn't go in there for imperialist or financial reasons. We went in there because he bought the Wolfowitz-Cheney analysis that the Iraqis would be better off, we could shake up the authoritarian Arab regimes in the Middle East, and our leverage to make peace between the Palestinians and Israelis would be increased."

"Strength and wisdom are not opposing values."

"What are the needs of the world? What can I do that won't be done if I don't do it?"

"What we have to do now is not to forget these people and places when all the cameras are not there. I think that's the most important message I can say to the American people right now."

"We need a steady stream of cash. The American people have been uncommonly generous."

"[Iraq is] not Vietnam, we have a government that has a support of the majority of the people."

"If ever there comes a time when everyone you vote for wins and they do everything you think they should do, there will still be a gap between what is and what ought to be."

"Former U.S. president Bill Clinton has urged newspaper editors to focus more attention on the depletion of the world's oil reserves. In a June 17 speech to the Association of Alternative Newsweeklies convention in Little Rock, Arkansas, Clinton said a "significant number of petroleum geologists" have warned that the world could be nearing the peak in oil production. Clinton suggested that at current consumption rates (now more than 30 billion barrels per year, according to the International Energy Agency), the world could be out of "recoverable oil" in 35 to 50 years, elevating the risk of "And then finally, and I think most important of all, more important than the deficit, more important then healthcare, more important than anything, is we have got to do something about our energy strategy because if we permit the climate to continue to warm at an unsustainable rate, and if we keep on doing what we're doing 'til we're out of oil and we haven't made the transition, then it's inconceivable to me that our children and grandchildren will be able to maintain the American way of life and that the world won't be much fuller of resource-based wars of all kinds.”"

"I think it's very interesting that all the conservative Republicans who now say I didn't do enough claimed that I was too obsessed with Bin Laden. All of President Bush's neo-cons thought I was too obsessed with Bin Laden. They had no meetings on Bin Laden for nine months after I left office. All the right-wingers who now say I didn't do enough, said I did too much—same people."

"[Asked if he thought he did enough to get Bin Laden] "No, because I didn't get him. But at least I tried. That's the difference [between] me and some, including all the right-wingers who are attacking me now. They ridiculed me for trying. They had eight months to try. They did not try. I tried.""

"So I tried and failed. When I failed, I left a comprehensive anti-terror strategy and the best guy in the country, Dick Clarke, who got demoted. So you did Fox's bidding on this show. You did your nice little conservative hit job on me. ... And you've got that little smirk on your face and you think you're so clever. But I had responsibility for trying to protect this country. I tried and I failed to get bin Laden. I regret it. But I did try. And I did everything I thought I responsibly could."

"The problem with ideology is, if you've got an ideology, you've already got your mind made up. You know all the answers and that makes evidence irrelevant and arguments a waste of time. You tend to govern by assertion and attacks."

"I learned a lot from the stories my uncle, aunts, and grandparents told me: that no one is perfect but most people are good; that people can't be judged only by their worst or weakest moments; that harsh judgements make hypocrites of us all; that a lot of life is just showing up and hanging on; that laughter is often the best, and sometimes only response to pain."

"Private citizens have more power to do public good and solve common problems than ever before in human history."

"I have met all the most gifted people in our generation and you're the best."

"Jesse Jackson won South Carolina in '84 and '88. Jackson ran a good campaign. And Obama ran a good campaign here."

"I think it would be a great thing if we had an election year where you had two people who loved this country and were devoted to the interest of this country. And people could actually ask themselves who is right on these issues, instead of all this other stuff that always seems to intrude itself on our politics."

"If a politician doesn't wanna get beat up, he shouldn't run for office. If a football player doesn't want to get tackled or want the risk of an a occasional clip he shouldn't put the pads on."

"The world has always been more impressed by the power of our [America's] example than by the example of our power."

"I just love that rug."

"In the years ahead, I will never hold a position higher or a covenant more sacred than that of President of the United States. But there is no title I will wear more proudly than that of citizen."

"Americans have more freedom and broader rights than citizens of almost any other nation in the world, including the capacity to criticize their government and their elected officials. But we do not have the right to resort to violence — or the threat of violence — when we don't get our way. Our founders constructed a system of government so that reason could prevail over fear. Oklahoma City proved once again that without the law there is no freedom.Criticism is part of the lifeblood of democracy. No one is right all the time. But we should remember that there is a big difference between criticizing a policy or a politician and demonizing the government that guarantees our freedoms and the public servants who enforce our laws."

"An increasing number of the young people in the IDF are the children of Russians and settlers, the hardest-core people against a division of the land. This presents a staggering problem. It's a different Israel. 16 percent of Israelis speak Russian. They've just got there, it's their country, they've made a commitment to the future there," Clinton said. "They can't imagine any historical or other claims that would justify dividing it."

"[Plant-based diet] changed my whole metabolism, and I lost 24 pounds, and I got back basically what I weighed in high school. But I did it for a different reason. I mean, I wanted to lose a little weight. But I never dreamed this would happen. I did it because, after I had this stent put in, I realized that, even though it happens quite often after you have bypass, you lose the veins, because they're thinner and weaker than arteries. The truth is that it clogged up, which means that the cholesterol was still causing buildup in my vein that was part of my bypass. And thank God I can take the stents. I don't want it to happen again. So I did all this research. And I saw that 82 percent of the people since 1986 who have gone on a plant-based, no dairy, no meat ... 82 percent of the people who have done that have begun to heal themselves. Their arterial blockage cleans up. The calcium deposit in their heart breaks up."

"There's never a perfect bipartisan bill in the eyes of a partisan."

"It's a great thing about not being office—you can just say whatever you want."

"I am grateful that they have worked together to make it safer and stronger to build a world with more partners and fewer enemies. I'm grateful for the relationship of respect and partnership she and the president have enjoyed. And the signal that sends to the rest of the world, that democracy does not have a -- have to be a blood sport, it can be an honorable enterprise that advances the public interest."

"I want to leave my daughter, and my grandchildren I hope to have and all these young people, a better world. And I think the reason you should do things for other people at bottom is selfish. There is no real difference between selfish and selfless if you understand how the world works. We all tied together. [...] Everytime you cut off somebody else's opportunity you shrink your own horizon."

"[After struggle with heart disease] I've stopped eating meat, cheese, milk, even fish. No dairy at all. I've lost more than 20 pounds so far, aiming for about 30 before Chelsea's wedding. And I have so much more energy now! I feel great. ... I just decided that I was the high-risk person, and I didn't want to fool with this anymore. And I wanted to live to be a grandfather. So I decided to pick the diet that I thought would maximize my chances of long-term survival. ... The main thing that was hard for me actually ... was giving up yogurt and hard cheese. I love that stuff, but it really made a big difference when I did it. ... [To truly change the conditions that lead to bad habits and poor health] we have to demand it by changing the way we live. You have to make a conscious decision to change for your own well-being, and that of your family and your country."

"The loss of trust is paralyzing."

"I ran upstairs to see my wife, we literally just sat there and held each other for, like, 20 minutes."

"Hillary opened my eyes to a whole new world of public service by private citizens."

"She never made fun of people with disabilities; she tried to empower them based on their abilities."

"I know most of the young Democrats our age who want to go into politics, they mean well and they speak well, but none of them is as good as you are at actually doing things to make positive changes in people's lives."

"She loved her teaching and she got frustrated when one of her students said, well, what do you expect, I'm just from Arkansas. She said, don't tell me that, you're as smart as anybody, you've just got to believe in yourself and work hard and set high goals. She believed that anybody could make it."

"I married my best friend. I was still in awe after more than four years of being around her at how smart and strong and loving and caring she was. And I really hoped that her choosing me and rejecting my advice to pursue her own career was a decision she would never regret."

"If you believe in making change from the bottom up, if you believe the measure of change is how many people's lives are better, you know it's hard and some people think it's boring. Speeches like this are fun. Actually doing the work is hard. So people say, well, we need to change. She's been around a long time, she sure has, and she's sure been worth every single year she's put into making people's lives better."

"If you were sitting where I'm sitting and you heard what I have heard at every dinner conversation, every lunch conversation, on every lone walk, you would say this woman has never been satisfied with the status quo in anything. She always wants to move the ball forward. That is just who she is."

"Piece by piece, pushing that rock up the hill."

"Nobody who has seriously dealt with the men and women in today's military believes they are a disaster. They are a national treasure of all races, all religions, all walks of life."

"If you win elections on the theory that government is always bad and will mess up a two-car parade a real change-maker represents a real threat. So your only option is to create a cartoon, a cartoon alternative, then run against the cartoon. Cartoons are two- dimensional, they're easy to absorb. Life in the real world is complicated and real change is hard. And a lot of people even think it's boring."

"Hillary is uniquely qualified to seize the opportunities and reduce the risks we face. And she is still the best darn change-maker I have ever known. You could drop her into any trouble spot, pick one, come back in a month and somehow, some way she will have made it better. That is just who she is."

"There are clear, achievable, affordable responses to our challenges. But we won't get to them if America makes the wrong choice in this election. That's why you should elect her. And you should elect her because she'll never quit when the going gets tough. She'll never quit on you."

"If you love this country, you're working hard, you're paying taxes and you're obeying the law and you'd like to become a citizen, you should choose immigration reform over somebody that wants to send you back. If you're a Muslim and you love America and freedom and you hate terror, stay here and help us win and make a future together. We want you. If you're a young African American disillusioned and afraid, we saw in Dallas how great our police officers can be, help us build a future where nobody is afraid to walk outside, including the people that wear blue to protect our future."

"Hillary will make us stronger together. You know it because she's spent a lifetime doing it."

"Today we faced an unprecedented assault on our Capitol, our Constitution, and our country. The assault was fueled by more than four years of poison politics spreading deliberate misinformation, sowing distrust in our system, and pitting Americans against one another. The match was lit by Donald Trump and his most ardent enablers, including many in Congress, to overturn the results of an election he lost. The election was free, the count was fair, the result is final. We must complete the peaceful transfer of power our Constitution mandates. I have always believed that America is made up of good, decent people. I still do. If that's who we really are, we must reject today's violence, turn the page, and move forward together — honoring our Constitution, remaining committed to a government of the people, by the people, and for the people."

"Webb, if I put you over at Justice I want you to find the answers to two questions for me. One, who killed JFK? And two, are there UFOs?"

"Someone should tell him that part of the art of politics is smiling when you feel like you're swallowing a turd."

"A few years ago, this guy would have been getting us coffee."

"The rage murder is new. It appeared under Reagan, during his cultural economic revolution, and it expanded in his aftermath. Reaganomics has ruled America ever since. For all of the Right's hysterical attacks on Clinton as a left-winger, the fact is that it was Clinton who administered a lethal injection to the welfare system with his Orwellian-named Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act. Under Clinton, Wall Street floruished with greater deregulation, globalization accelerated as never before, downsizings soared, and the anti-union, pro-shareholder corporate culture that Reagan launched went from being a radical experiment to a way of life. By the time George W. Bush took office, the cultural-economic transformation had become so deeply entrenched that what once would have been considered extreme and unacceptable was cheered and praised, even by those who suffered. The change was radical and traumatic, so much so that historians may look back at this time and wonder why there weren't more murders and rebellions, just as it is shocking today to consider how few slave rebellions there were."

"During the transition to the new Clinton administration, Madeleine Albright famously asked Gen. Colin Powell, then chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, "What's the point of having this superb military you're always talking about if we can't use it?" In 1999, as secretary of state under Bill Clinton, Albright got her wish, running roughshod over the UN Charter with an illegal war to carve out an independent Kosovo from the ruins of Yugoslavia... When U.K. Foreign Secretary Robin Cook told Albright his government was "having trouble with our lawyers" over NATO's illegal war plan, Albright crassly told him to "get new lawyers."... Twenty-two years later, Kosovo is the third-poorest country in Europe (after Moldova and post-coup Ukraine) and its independence is still not recognized by 96 countries. Hashim Thaçi, Albright's hand-picked main ally in Kosovo and later its president, is awaiting trial in an international court at the Hague, charged with murdering at least 300 civilians under cover of NATO bombing in 1999 to extract and sell their internal organs on the international transplant market. Clinton and Albright's gruesome and illegal war set the precedent for more illegal U.S. wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria and elsewhere, with equally devastating and horrific results."

"Did NATO have problems? Of course. Not for nothing was Henry Kissinger's famous 1965 work entitled The Troubled Partnership: A Reappraisal of the Atlantic Alliance. The list of NATO's deficiencies was long, including, after the Soviet Union's 1991 collapse, the feckless abandonment by several European members of their responsibility to provide for their own self-defense. Under President Clinton, America suffered its own military declines, as he and others saw the collapse of Communism as "the end of history," slashing defense budgets to spend on politically beneficial domestic welfare programs. This "peace dividend" illusion never ended in much of Europe, but it ended in America with the September 11 mass murders in New York and Washington by Islamicist terrorists. NATO's future has been intensely debated among national-security experts for decades, with many urging a broader post-Cold War agenda. Barack Obama criticized NATO members for being "free riders," not spending adequately on their own defense budgets, but, typically, he had simply graced the world with his views, doing nothing to see them carried out."

"He spoke about the party’s most popular policies while also taking every opportunity to show that he was not, and would not be, beholden to the interests of Black Americans. Invited to speak at Jesse Jackson’s Rainbow Coalition conference, Clinton concluded his remarks with a now-notorious denunciation of the rapper and activist Sister Souljah, an attack by proxy on Jackson, who had brought Souljah to the event. Jackson, a two-time candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination, was a stand-in for the Black activist class, and Clinton’s audience got the message...In addition to that incident, there was Clinton’s infamous choice to fly to Arkansas, where he still served as governor, to preside at the execution of a mentally impaired Black inmate, Ricky Ray Rector, in a macabre demonstration of his “tough on crime” bona fides...there is no such thing as idle presidential rhetoric. Having committed himself in word as a candidate to the interests of the white mainstream against Black activists and civil right leaders, Clinton would do the same in deed as president, slashing welfare and funneling billions to prisons and law enforcement as part of a “war on crime.”"

"This guy's a scumbag. That's why I'm after him."

"I think we need people with stronger ideals than John Kerry or Bill Clinton. I think we need people with more courage and vision. It's a shame we have had people who are so damn weak."

"Clinton was so smooth; he could lie his way out of anything. He could stand in front of you, right now, look you all directly in the eyes, and say 'I am not here'."

"Clinton was so smooth, it was almost sickening."

"[[Feminism|[F]eminist]] hypocrisy. Ask me that at a cocktail party and I will talk your ear off about how the very people who had lectured us about the utter venality of workplace sexual harassment throughout the 1980s became suddenly quiescent when the malefactor was Bill Clinton."

"Before there were any suicide bombers, it was also reported by the same sources that Saddam Hussein was giving $10,000 to the families of anyone who was killed by Israeli atrocities, and there were plenty of them... in the first few days of the intifada, the Israeli army fired a million bullets. One of the high military officers said 'that means one bullet for every child'. Within the first month of the intifada, they killed about 70 people. Using U.S. helicopters, and in fact Clinton shipped new helicopters to Israel as soon as they started using them against civilians. That's just the first month... Well, is that supporting terror? It seems to me, sending helicopters to Israel when they're using them to attack apartment complexes, that's supporting terror."

"The Environmental Justice Movement reached what may have been its apogee of transforming national policy on February 11, 1994, when President Bill Clinton signed the Executive Order on Environmental Justice, making environmental justice the policy of the federal government. This Order, among other things, directs each federal agency to "identify and address" the "disproportionately high and adverse human health or environmental effects" of its programs, policies, and activities on people of color and on low-income communities. The Executive Order was a concrete realization of the Movement's goals of influencing decision makers; many Movement leaders were invited to the Oval Office to watch the signing ceremony. The Executive Order was the result of dozens of local environmental justice struggles."

"It's not that Andrew Jackson had a "dark side," as his apologists rationalize and which all human beings have, but rather that Jackson was the Dark Knight in the formation of the United States as a colonialist, imperialist democracy, a dynamic formation that continues to constitute the core of US patriotism. The most revered presidents-Jefferson, Jackson, Lincoln, Wilson, both Roosevelts, Truman, Kennedy, Reagan, Clinton, Obama-have each advanced populist imperialism while gradually increasing inclusion of other groups beyond the core of descendants of old settlers into the ruling mythology. All the presidents after Jackson march in his footsteps. Consciously or not, they refer back to him on what is acceptable, how to reconcile democracy and genocide and characterize it as freedom for the people."

"During the 1990s, the Middle East had witnessed a decade of relative calm, in part thanks to the détente between Iran and Saudi Arabia but also as a result of Pax Americana—post–Cold War, the United States was the unchallenged hegemon. The Saudi-Iran rapprochement had yielded more than anyone expected, including a security agreement. When Saudi Arabia’s defense minister visited Tehran in May 1999, his Iranian counterpart declared: “The sky’s the limit for Iranian–Saudi Arabian relations and cooperation as the whole of Islamic Iran’s military might is in the service of our Saudi Muslim brothers.” President Bill Clinton was basking in the glory of a unipolar world and America was prospering as the indispensable nation. Throughout his presidency and until his very last months in power, Clinton was working on peace between Arabs and Israelis—succeeding only with the Jordanians. Even though people like Nasr in Egypt had their lives upended, Iraq was under UN embargo, and bombs had gone off in the Saudi kingdom, the decade carried some promise. It all came to an end on 9/11. President George W. Bush went to war against the Taliban, who were sheltering Osama bin Laden. After liberating Afghanistan, America declared a global war on terror, a frenzy of liberation. Bush decided to finish what his father had begun—he went after Saddam."

"I think Bill Clinton was the best Republican president we've had in a while."

"By pandering to the self-interested claims of the masters of finance, Clinton did more to bring on the 2008 recession than President Bush."

"Bill Clinton and his two treasury secretary enablers, Robert Rubin and Larry Summers, instituted a system of unregulated capitalism that has resulted in financial anarchy. This anarchic form of capitalism, where everything, including human beings and the natural world, is a commodity to exploit until exhaustion or collapse, is justified by identity politics. It is sold as “enlightened liberalism” as opposed to the old pro-union class politics that saw the Democrats heed the voices of the working class. Financial anarchy and short-term plunder have destroyed long-term financial and political stability. It has also pushed the human species, along with most other species, closer and closer towards extinction."

"A f---inng rapist, a war criminal, and a pathological liar."

"It came back to haunt Hillary Clinton in Miami with Haitians not voting for her, so people have long memories. But Clinton's welfare reform, or what we call welfare deform, had such an impact, particularly on single Black mothers. The carceral state was reinforced and made much more brutal through the three-strikes laws, through the mandatory minimum sentences which were upped, through his horrific behavior around rushing back to Arkansas during his election to go and put somebody who was mentally disabled to death. He really set in place the apparatus that we are still trying to dismantle today."

"Clinton's an unusually good liar. Unusually good."

"Much has been written about what happened in Littleton in the wake of the tragedy. As humans go into shock after an assault on their bodies, so do communities. As President Clinton said on the night of the massacre, "If it could happen in a place like Littleton..." This wasn't the drug-riddled inner city, or some supposedly godless corridor like New York or Los Angeles. People who lived in Littleton were upstanding citizens with nice suburban houses and happy, healthy, well-fed children. We expected our schools would be safe."

"Mr Bill Clinton recently made a speech, one of his last as President of the United States, at the University of Warwick, where he spoke passionately, with wit and a heavy dose of civility, on globalisation. Mr Clinton was on the side of the angels when he noted: "If the wealthiest countries ended our agricultural subsidies, leveling the playing field for the world`s farmers, that alone could increase the income of developing countries by $20 billion a year." So why not do it? Why not remove the subsidies? Why not play fair? Why not level the playing field? Why not give the hundreds of millions of farmers in the developing world a better chance to put food in the mouths of their children and a few cents in their pocket? Mr Clinton, a great champion of globalisation, himself gave the answer. It is "not as simple as it sounds," Mr Clinton says. "I see these beautiful fields in Great Britain; I have driven down the highways of France; I know there is a cultural social value to the fabric that has developed here over the centuries." Indeed."

"You want me to fix up lyrics, while our president gets his dick sucked?"

"When Clinton was running for re-election in 1996, he supported a fat package of anti-immigrant legislation. It passed, followed that same year by so-called welfare reform legislation, whose victims include millions of migrant workers-a more accurate term than "immigrant"...Along with the specifically anti-immigrant laws, Clinton combined immigrants and welfare recipients in one big package for super-convenient scapegoating. His so-called welfare reform bill ended 60 years of federal responsibility for helping the nation's poor."

"The current, exclusively Black-white framework for racism prevails throughout U.S. society, even when it is obviously inappropriate. Everywhere we can find major discussions of race and race relations that totally ignore people of color other than African Americans. President Bill Clinton led the way in the first stages of his "dialogue on race" during 1997, with a commission that included no Native Americans, Asian Americans or Latinos."

"Bill Clinton understands even better than anyone sitting here the race thing and Western Christian civilization. He genuinely believes Hillary should be nominated because he didn't believe America was ready to elect a black."

"Years ago, in the middle of the Whitewater investigation, one heard the first murmurs. White skin notwithstanding, this is our first black president. Blacker than any actual black person who could ever be elected in our children's lifetime."

"Bill Clinton is generally viewed as one smart politician, having been twice elected the President, helped by lackluster Robert Dole, having survived the Lewinsky sex scandal, lying under oath about sex, and impeachment. When it is all about himself, he is cunningly smart."

"I remember when I graduated from eighth grade, I received a presidential certificate of excellence signed by Bill Clinton. It didn't matter how many other kids got the same piece of paper; Aabe and I basked in the pride that the president had affirmed my hard work. Politics aside, the highest office in the land carries great weight."

"The mitigating steps we took were too slow and too small. Countries did come together to sign the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change at the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro in 1992. The aim of the treaty was to reduce greenhouse gas emissions back to 1990 levels by the year 2000. However, the agreement was toothless because its emissions reduction obligations were unenforceable. The participation of the US was important and a cause for hope, given that it had thus far contributed the most to global carbon dioxide emissions. The US Congress ratified the agreement and Bill Clinton's election to the presidency that same year seemed to bode well for climate action. But when the new president tried to implement an energy tax as a first mandatory measure to restrain emissions, he encountered strong opposition in Congress and withdrew his proposal. Taxes are the 'third rail' of US politics and, to this day, carbon taxes face a difficult path to adoption."

"Right from the start, when the Bill Cosby [sexual assaults] scandal surfaced, I knew it was not going to bode well for Hillary's campaign, because young women today have a much lower threshold for tolerance of these matters. The horrible truth is that the feminist establishment in the U.S., led by Gloria Steinem, did in fact apply a double standard to Bill Clinton's behavior because he was a Democrat. The Democratic president and administration supported abortion rights, and therefore it didn't matter what his personal behavior was. But we're living in a different time right now, and young women have absolutely no memory of Bill Clinton. It's like ancient history for them; there's no reservoir of accumulated good will. And the actual facts of the matter are that Bill Clinton was a serial abuser of working-class women–he had exploited that power differential even in Arkansas. And then in the case of Monica Lewinsky–I mean, the failure on the part of Gloria Steinem and company to protect her was an absolute disgrace in feminist history! What bigger power differential could there be than between the president of the United States and this poor innocent girl? Not only an intern but clearly a girl who had a kind of pleading, open look to her–somebody who was looking for a father figure."

"For most Africans, Gaddafi is a generous man, a humanist, known for his unselfish support for the struggle against the racist regime in South Africa. If he had been an egotist, he wouldn’t have risked the wrath of the West to help the ANC both militarily and financially in the fight against apartheid. This was why Mandela, soon after his release from 27 years in jail, decided to break the UN embargo and travel to Libya on 23 October 1997. Mandela didn’t mince his words when the former US president Bill Clinton said the visit was an ‘unwelcome’ one – ‘No country can claim to be the policeman of the world and no state can dictate to another what it should do’. He added – ‘Those that yesterday were friends of our enemies have the gall today to tell me not to visit my brother Gaddafi, they are advising us to be ungrateful and forget our friends of the past."

"I was really looking forward to it because I got a shiver of fear up my spine about it. He was my favourite president of the 20th century. I didn’t agree with him politically on a few things, but he was emblematic of my mother and father’s generation and a great communicator."

"This fellow they've nominated claims he's the new Thomas Jefferson. Well, let me tell you something. I knew Thomas Jefferson. He was a friend of mine. And governor, you're no Thomas Jefferson."

"I could not accept such an award from President Clinton or this White House because the very meaning of art, as I understand it, is incompatible with the cynical politics of this administration."

"I find him cowardly and spineless"

"The political price for passing the ban included the loss of Congress to the Republicans in 1994, endangering Clinton's agenda, and creating the partisan conditions on Capitol Hill that produced his own impeachment. Even Clinton himself, looking back on the assault weapon ban in his memoir, My Life, concluded that he had likely “pushed the Congress, the country, and the administration too hard.”"

"George Herbert Walker Bush invented regime change in Iraq and Bill Clinton inherited it, and ran with it. The CIA made four concerted efforts to assassinate Saddam Hussein under Clinton's leadership.... And I really am tired of all the Clinton Democrats running around getting all-sanctimonious over Iraq. It was them who killed 1.5 to 2.2 million Iraqis through sanctions. Sanctions that Madeline Albright, their illustrious Secretary of State, when confronted with the fact of 500,000 dead Iraqi children, said it was a price she was willing to pay."

"The idea of Bill Clinton back in the White House with nothing to do is something I just can't imagine."

"The great media lie in the 1992 electoral campaign is that Clinton, unlike earlier Democratic presidential candidates, has moved from the “left” to the “middle” of the political spectrum, and also that unlike earlier presidential candidates he is not beholden to left-wing special interests. The fact is that they tried the same nonsense in the Dukakis campaign in 1988, and they were not successful in fooling too many people. Clinton’s “moderation” and “business friendly” views consist of his promotion of “investments.” But these “investments” have mysteriously been redefined to consist of government spending! The current media narrative claims that the US economy is losing productivity, and that what is needed to improve productivity is higher taxes (!) and increased government spending on “infrastructure”—that is to say, more money wasted on government roads and more money for schools which serve mostly as indoctrination camps."

"In 2008, the United States suffered the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression, when Wall Street collapsed. Many experts believe that this horrific recession was precipitated by the passage of bipartisan legislation enacted during Bill Clinton's administration that deregulated Wall Street and the activities of the largest financial interests in the country."

"In 1993, during the debate over NAFTA, President Clinton promised us that the trade agreement with Mexico and Canada would "create a million jobs in the first five years"...Unfortunately, President Clinton, Senator McConnell, the Heritage Foundation, and many, many others were way off the mark. Instead of creating a million American jobs, the Economic Policy Institute found, NAFTA destroyed more than 850,000 American jobs."

"After Clinton's failure to reform our health care system, we ended up with a cumbersome, profit-driven, consumer-unfriendly, inefficient health care delivery system dominated by insurance companies. And I mean dominated."

"President Clinton, like Bush and Reagan before him, is supporting a trade policy that protects the interests and profits of multinational corporations, while compromising the interests of American workers."

"This whole thing about not kicking someone when they are down is BS. Not only do you kick him, you kick him until he passes out — then beat him over the head with a baseball bat, then roll him up in an old rug, and throw him off the cliff into the pound[ing] surf below!"

"The uncomfortable truth is that, whether you're Donald Trump or Bill Clinton, economic populism is most effective in American politics when it is paired with appeals to racism."

"On a more serious note, one of the major differences between the two presidents dealt with partisan politics. President Clinton had reached out to the Republican Party in an attempt to have bipartisan legislation and bipartisan views of the different issues that would be required. He further extended that hand by selecting Senator William Cohen, a Republican, to be his Secretary of Defense. Contrast that with the incoming administration of President Bush, which was filled with a number of neocons and had an intense distaste- and distrust- for anybody who was associated with either a prior administration or the Democratic Party in general, in spit of their high levels of expertise and experience. I'm talking about midlevel and low-level positions that required a nomination or an appointment to be made by the President. If they had touched the Democratic Party in any way or if they had worked in a prior Democratic administration, they could forget it because they just weren't going to be considered in any capacity. It's too bad because he lost a large number of top people who would have been loyal, dedicated workers- but it was not to be. From my standpoint, it was disruptive to good government. Long gone were the days of a bipartisan view of what was best for America, which made it a very distasteful environment."

"One undeniable accomplishment of Bill Clinton's presidency was that it kept Jimmy Carter from being the worst U.S. president in history."

"Power corrupts, and, in many cases, absolute power makes you really horny. Clinton, Chirac, Mao, Mitterrand."

"I think Bill Clinton was a great President. You know, you look at the country then - the economy was doing great. Look at what happened during the Clinton years. I mean, we had no war, the economy was doing great, everybody was happy. A lot of people hated him because they were jealous as hell."

"He was admitted to the hospital for close monitoring and administered IV antibiotics and fluids. He remains at the hospital for continuous monitoring. We hope to have him go home soon."

"The President was shooting bombs overseas. Yet, I'm a bad guy because I sing some rock-and-roll songs? Who's a bigger influence, the President or Marilyn Manson? I'd like to think me, but I'm going to go with the President."

"In order to overcome the Reagan ascendency Democrats needed to advance the rights secured during the 1960s while returning to more traditional political bedrock. To a remarkable extent, Clinton delivered on that promise...Governor Clinton said in 1991: “Government’s responsibility is to create more opportunity for everybody, and our responsibility is to make the most of it.” These are Democratic ideas, and liberal ones. Bill Clinton reaffirmed, updated, and carried them forward into the twenty-first century."

"Unique among the nations, America recognized the source of our character as being godly and eternal, not being civic and temporal. And because we have understood that our source is eternal, America has been different. We have no king but Jesus."

"Since Tuesday the Justice Department has received reports of violence and threats of violence against Arab-Americans and other Americans of Middle Eastern and South Asian descents. We must not descend to the level of those who perpetrated Tuesday's violence by targeting individuals based on their race, their religion, or their national origin. Such reports of violence and threats are in direct opposition to the very principles and laws of the United States and will not be tolerated."

"Islam is a religion in which God requires you to send your son to die for him. Christianity is a faith in which God sends his son to die for you."

"To those who scare peace-loving people with phantoms of lost liberty, my message is this: Your tactics only aid terrorists, for they erode our national unity and diminish our resolve. They give ammunition to America's enemies, and pause to America's friends. They encourage people of good will to remain silent in the face of evil."

"The last time I looked at September 11th, an American street was a war zone. There was a street in Virginia that was a war zone."

"The objective of securing the safety of Americans from crime and terror has been achieved."

"(Allegedly) Why are we talking about this in the White House? History will not judge this kindly."

"I'm trying to think of all the reasons that are appropriate for me to refuse to answer that question."

"Sometimes the act of walking in the face of the elements helps us come to grips with reality. Or it simply exhausts us to the point of seeing the futility of resisting reality and the futility of denial."

"I was deeply grieved and suddenly depleted by a draining weariness. This day had been a nightmare, and I had not yet been asleep."

"My family has never suggested to me that my identity or value to them depended on my station in life. I knew that they did not consider me any more or less valuable because I held some political office. They valued me as a husband and father, whether or not I won an election. Nor did they regard holding office on Capitol Hill or in the Missouri statehouse as the epitome of success. Quite the contrary, my family had endured numerous personal sacrifices because of my public positions."

"A trustee has a responsibility to guard the assets of others with a higher degree of care than he does his own."

"Through it all, I've learned to trust that God does indeed have a plan and purpose for me. Trust doesn't come into play when you can figure everything out; that's mere reason. Trust operates when you can't understand why circumstances or events happen. That's where it takes faith to believe that God knows what is best for our lives."

"To me, failure is not fatal unless you quit; getting knocked down is not embarrassing unless you allow it to keep you down."

"Politics disabuses a person of the notion that you can please everybody. It is an inescapable fact that people will always have different opinions, and some people are going to disagree. Sooner or later, a person constructs his or her own "platform" and stands on it, regardless of what others think, say, or do. It is also true that some people delight in another person's demise."

"I decided this early on at Justice: if the traditional way was the most effective way of doing something, then we'd maintain it. But if it was not functioning at optimum levels, we would be doing the country a disservice by continuing to do things "like we've always done them.""

"It wasn't that people were antagonistic; it was more that they were accustomed to doing their work in a certain way, and change always causes some people to be uncomfortable."

"I'm convinced that faith is a matter of inspiration, not a matter of imposition. It is something a person models rather than mandates. Faith does not impose itself on other people. Imposition usually sacrifices somebody else; it seeks to injure or extort others. This is what the terrorist does in an attempt to impose his religion on the world."

"It is not enough that we have a guilty defendant. We must have an innocent system as well."

"To me, capital punishment is a form of societal self-defense. It should not be employed indiscriminately, but in cases of the most heinous crimes, the death penalty may be the only appropriate punishment. Some people believe it is right to take a life to save the life of someone else, but they would not vote to take the life of a convicted criminal, no matter how horrible the crime. Others believe that killing another person for any reason is simply wrong. I respect those opinions, but I disagree with them. I'm convinced that government has a duty to promote community defense. The death penalty, when applied in appropriate cases, can be a strong deterrent to crime. It is certainly a deterrent to the convicted criminal sentenced to death, and it is also a deterrent to other potential capital offenders."

"I have to chuckle sometimes when I am painted as "hard-nosed." In truth, our Justice Department wasn't nearly as aggressive as Roosevelt's. And our respect for civil liberties was far more extensive than the response following Pearl Harbor. Yes, we were tough, but we always operated within the law; it was never our policy or practice to detain any noncombatant without charges. In our conduct, we never approached the limits of the law as closely as Roosevelt did."

"Do not allow your sorrow or your rage to become hostility toward people on the basis of their ethnicity or their religious views. That is unacceptable; it is out of bounds, and if you break the law, we will prosecute you for it."

"Soldiers defending a country at war are not subject to the rules of procedure designed for court trials. For example, if a soldier encounters an enemy, under internationally agreed upon rules of war, that soldier can take whatever action is necessary to protect himself and neutralize his enemy, whether it involves capturing and detaining the enemy or killing him on the spot."

"Since lives and liberties depend upon clarity, not obfuscation, and reason, not hyperbole, let me take this opportunity today to be clear: Each action taken by the Department of Justice, as well as the war crimes commissions considered by the president and the Department of Defense, is carefully drawn to target a narrow class of individuals- terrorists. Our legal powers are targeted at terrorists. Our investigation is focused on terrorists. Our prevention strategy targets the terrorist threat."

"We need honest, reasoned debate; not fear-mongering. To those who pit Americans against immigrants, and citizens against non-citizens; to those who scare peace-loving people with phantoms of lost liberty; my message to you is this: Your tactics only aid terrorists- for they erode our national unity and diminish our resolve. They give ammunition to America's enemies, and pause to America's friends. They encourage people of good will to remain silent in the face of evil."

"Doing what is right in the face of adversity is not always easy or popular. Critics may assail you, but the critics don't always realize what they don't know or don't understand, because they don't have access to all the information."

"Some people in our country seem more concerned about respecting the dignity and privacy of criminals and terrorists than they are about having an airport full of people obliterated, or a completely booked hotel blown to bits. Perhaps they think, Let's not get so upset about attacks on our embassies or military bases. Maybe, they surmise, the terrorists have good reason for attacking us. We have no right to be harassing innocent people in our country. For some people, not even the grotesque images that filled our television screens after al Qaeda's blatant attacks on 9/11 seem enough to wake them out of their utopia feel-good world."

"How sad, that the group with the most access to the truth chose in several strategic instances to look the other way."

"Simply put, international terrorism made international cooperation mandatory rather than elective. Collective security has become the only real security against the hydra-headed monster of international terror."

"The goal of terror is not traditional territorial enlargement; rather the war target of the terrorist is the dismemberment of the will of the community it terrorizes."

"We must remain constantly vigilant. We dare not underestimate our enemy. Al Qaeda is committed to the destruction of America, and they are in it for the long haul. They are much smarter than many give them credit for being, and they are definitely much more patient than the pace of our fast-food society conditions us to be. Their commitment does not depend on bin Laden or any other single leader."

"recently the Attorney General made another astonishing claim, that there were Pakistani terrorists possibly coming on these boats from Haiti. No one has ever seen a Pakistani coming on a boat from Haiti yet. Ashcroft couldn’t even name one case."

"Former attorney general John Ashcroft mocked librarians and the ALA, accusing them and other administration critics of fueling "baseless hysteria" about the government's use of the PATRIOT Act to pry into the public's reading habits."

"The worst mistake a boss can make is not to say "well done"."

"A man who works with his hands is a laborer; a man who works with his hands and his brain is a craftsman; but a man who works with his hands and his brain and his heart is an artist."

"Once early in the morning, at two or three in the morning, when the master was asleep, the books in the library began to quarrel with each other as to which was the king of the library. The dictionary contended quite angrily that he was the master of the library because without words there would be no communication at all. The book of science argued stridently that he was the master of the library for without science there would have been no printing press or any of the other wonders of the world. The book of poetry claimed that he was the king, the master of the library, because he gave surcease and calm to his master when he was troubled. The books of philosophy, the economic books, all put in their claims, and the clamor was great and the noise at its height when a small low voice was heard from an old brown book lying in the center of the table and the voice said "The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want". And all of the noise and the clamor in the library ceased, and there was a hush in the library, for all of the books knew who the real master of the library was."

"When a man points a finger at someone else, he should remember that four of his fingers are pointing to himself."

"There is an aphorism about a farmer who before sunrise on a cold and misty morning, saw a huge beast on a distant hill. He seized his rifle and walked cautiously toward the ogre to head off an attack on his family. When he got nearer, he was relieved to find that the beast was only a small bear. He approached more confidently and when he was within a few hundred yards the distorting haze had lifted sufficiently so that he could recognize the figure as only that of a man. Lowering his rifle, he walked toward the stranger and discovered he was his brother."

"A graceful taunt is worth a thousand insults."

"Every man a king, but no one wears a crown."

"Don't liken me to that [SOB]. Anybody that lets his public policies be mixed up with religious prejudice is a plain [GD] fool."

"Whenever this administration has gone to the left I have voted for it, and whenever it has gone to the right I have voted against it."

"The trouble is, Roosevelt hasn't taken all of my ideas; just part of them. I'm about one hundred yards ahead of him. We're on the same road, but I'm here and he's there."

"Mr. President, I am not undertaking to answer the charge that I am ignorant. It is true. I am an ignorant man. I have had no college education. I have not even had a high school education. But the things that takes me far in politics is that I do not have to color what comes into my mind and into my heart. I say it unvarnished. I say it without veneer. I have not the learning to do otherwise, and therefore my ignorance is often not detected. I know the hearts of the People because I have not colored my own. I know when I am right in my own conscience. I do not talk one way in the cloakroom and another way out here. I do not talk one way back there in the hills of Louisiana and another way here in the Senate. I have one language. Ignorant as it is, it is the universal language within the sphere in which I operate. Its simplicity gains pardon for my lack of letters and education. Nonetheless my voice will be the same as it has been. Patronage will not change it. Fear will not change it. Persecution will not change it. It cannot be changed while people suffer. The only way it can be changed is to make the lives of these people decent and respectable. No one will ever hear political opposition out of me when that is done."

"I'm for the poor man — all poor men, black and white, they all gotta have a chance. They gotta have a home, a job, and a decent education for their children. 'Every man a king' — that's my slogan."

"I don't know much about Hitler. Except that last thing, about the Jews. There has never been a country that put its heel down on the Jews that ever lived afterwards."

"Treat them just the same as anybody else, give them an opportunity to make a living, and to get an education."

"Now, just a word about the poor Negroes … They're here. They've got to be cared for … The poor Negroes have got to live, too."

"They kept on hollering, and I simply had to put my foot down. I said, 'I'm the governor and I say the ignorant in this state have to learn, blacks as well as whites.' And they learned."

"We started them to school. They learned to read. They learned to work simple arithmetic problems. Now some of our plantation owners can't figure the poor devils out of everything at the close of each year."

"And it is here under this oak where Evangeline waited for her lover, Gabriel, who never came. This oak is an immortal spot, made so by Longfellow's poem, but Evangeline is not the only one who has waited here in disappointment. Where are the schools that you have waited for your children to have, that have never come? Where are the roads and the highways that you send your money to build, that are no nearer now than ever before? Where are the institutions to care for the sick and disabled? Evangeline wept bitter tears in her disappointment, but it lasted through only one lifetime. Your tears in this country, around this oak, have lasted for generations. Give me the chance to dry the eyes of those who still weep here!"

"For the present you can just call me the Kingfish."

"We swapped the tyrant 3,000 miles away for a handful of financial slaveowning overlords who make the tyrant of Great Britain seem mild."

"Education and training for all children to be equal in opportunity in all schools, colleges, universities, and other institutions of training in the professions and vocations in life; to be regulated on the capacity of children to learn, and not on the ability of parents to pay the costs. Training for life's work to be as much universal and thorough for all walks of life as has been the training in the arts of killing."

"No man has ever been President of the United States more than two terms. You know that; everyone knows that. But when I get in, I'm going to abolish the , have universal suffrage, and I defy any sonofabitch to get me out under four terms."

"Quote me as saying that that Imperial bastard will never set foot in Louisiana, and that when I call him a sonofabitch I am not using profanity, but am referring to the circumstances of his birth."

"I wonder why he shot me."

"When the United States gets fascism, it will call it anti-fascism."

"Strictures, reproaches, and intemperate speeches from the Senator of Louisiana are really the wailings of an apostle of despair; he has lost control of himself, he is trying to play billiards with elliptical billiard balls and a spiral cue."

"With Huey Long's death I lost most of my interest in the present political picture."

"But the American leader most often accused of fascist tendencies was Huey Long. As Louisiana governor (and senator), Long imposed local martial law, censored the newspapers, forbade public assemblies, packed the courts and legislatures with his cronies, and installed his twenty-four-year-old lover as secretary of state. Long was a racketeer, but his "Share Our Wealth" program did improve local conditions, building roads and bridges, investing in hospitals and schools, and abolishing the poll tax. His economic populism was also not predicated on furthering racial, ethnic, or religious divisions; he subordinated his white supremacism to his redistributionist political message. "We just lynch an occasional nigger," he breezily declared when dismissing anti-lynching laws, though he also recognized "you can’t help poor white people without helping Negroes," and so was prepared for his rising tide to lift all boats. When Long set his sights on the 1936 presidential election, Franklin D. Roosevelt was sufficiently alarmed to inform his ambassador to Germany: "Long plans to be a candidate of the Hitler type for the presidency," predicting that by 1940 Long would try to install himself as a dictator."

"The only kind of band in which Huey Long could play was a one-man band."

"Huey Long: Every Man a King. Make the Standard Oil pay — which is what he did in Louisiana. Built Tulane, built hospitals, siphoned all that money right into the state so everyone could benefit. Roosevelt was scared to death of him in 1936, because Huey was going to run on a third ticket. And he could have denied Roosevelt a second term, and Huey’s plan was that he himself would be — in 1940 — he would be the Democratic nominee and Roosevelt would be finished. And then we would get Huey Longism, which was true populism. The money was going to go to the people for the things that would make the people’s lives better."

"I think that Jesus would be disappointed in our ignoring the plight of those around us who are suffering and our focus on our own selfish short-term needs. I think he would be appalled, actually."

"And we have so much work to do in America, because all across America, there are walls ... There's a wall around Washington, D.C. The American people are, today, on the outside of that wall. And on the inside are the big corporations and the lobbyists who are working to protect a system that takes care of them. ... There is another wall that divides us. It's the moral shame of 37 million of our own people who wake up in poverty every single day This is not OK. And for eight long, long years, this wall has gotten taller And there's also a wall that's divided our image in the world. The America as the beacon of hope is behind that wall. And all the world sees now is a bully. They see Iraq, Guantanamo, secret prison and government that argues that water boarding is not torture. This is not OK. That wall has to come down for the sake of our ideals and our security. We can change this. We can change it. Yes we can. If we stand together, we can change it. ... This is not going to be easy. It's going to be the fight of our lives. But we're ready, because we know that this election is about something bigger than the tired old hateful politics of the past. This election is about taking down these walls that divide us, so that we can see what's possible -- what's possible, that one America that we can build together."

"Let me be clear: Under no circumstances can Iran be allowed to have nuclear weapons. ... To ensure that Iran never gets nuclear weapons, we need to keep all options on the table. Let me reiterate--all options must remain on the table."

"I am proud that at my side will be a running mate whose life is the story of the American dream and who's worked every day to make that dream real for all Americans – Senator John Edwards of North Carolina. And his wonderful wife Elizabeth and their family. This son of a mill worker is ready to lead – and next January, Americans will be proud to have a fighter for the middle class to succeed Dick Cheney as Vice President of the United States."

"as John Edwards has said, "It's time for us to be patriotic about something besides war.""

"We have a cancer within, close to the presidency, that's growing."

"I'm anything but skittish about government, but I must say this administration is truly scary and, given the times we live in, frighteningly dangerous."

"This memorandum addresses the matter of how we can maximize the fact of our incumbency in dealing with persons known to be active in their opposition to our Administration, Stated a bit more bluntly—how we can use the available federal machinery to screw our political enemies."

"Eternal vigilance. Remember, no one said democracy would be easy."

"It quickly becomes apparent to any person who has considerable experience with classified material that there is massive overclassification and that the principal concern of the classifiers is not with national security, but rather with governmental embarrassment of one sort or another."

"There are few people in this world with whom I can converse."

"I can treat all with decency and civility, and converse with them, when it is necessary, on points of business. But I am never happy in their company."

"There was a physical quality in us resembling the power of electricity or of the magnet, by which when a pair approached within a striking distance they flew together like the needle to the pole or like two objects in electric experiments."

"Major Greene this evening fell into some conversation with me about the Divinity and satisfaction of Jesus Christ. All the argument he advanced was, "that a mere creature or finite being could not make satisfaction to infinite justice for any crimes," and that "these things are very mysterious." Thus mystery is made a convenient cover for absurdity."

"A fine morning. Proceeded on my journey towards Braintree. Stopped to see Mr. Haven, of Dedham, who told me, very civilly, he supposed I took my faith on trust from Dr. Mayhew, and added, that he believed the doctrine of satisfaction of Jesus Christ to be essential to Christianity, and that he would not believe this satisfaction unless he believed the Divinity of Christ. Mr. Balch was there too, and observed, he would not be a Christian if he did not believe mysteries of the gospel; that he could bear with an Arminian, but when, Dr. Mayhew they denied the Divinity and satisfaction of Christ, he had no more to do with them; that he knew to make of Dr. Mayhew's two discourses upon the expected of all things. They gave him an idea of a cart whose wanted greasing; it rumbled on in a hoarse, rough manner; there was a good deal of ingenious talk in them, but it was thrown together in a jumbled, confused order. He believed the Doctor wrote them in a great panic. He added further that Arminians, however stiffly they maintain their opinions in health, always, he takes notice, retract when they come to die, and choose to die Calvinists. Set out for Braintree, and arrived about sunset.""

"Spent an hour in the beginning of the evening at Major Gardiner's, where it was thought that the design of Christianity was not to make men good riddle-solvers, or good mystery-mongers, but good men, good magistrates, and good subjects, good husbands and good wives, good parents and good children, good masters and good servants. The following questions may be answered some time or other, namely, — Where do we find a precept in the Gospel requiring Ecclesiastical Synods? Convocations? Councils? Decrees? Creeds? Confessions? Oaths? Subscriptions? and whole cart-loads of other trumpery that we find religion incumbered with in these days?"

"No man is entirely free from weakness and imperfection in this life. Men of the most exalted genius and active minds are generally most perfect slaves to the love of fame. They sometimes descend to as mean tricks and artifices in pursuit of honor or reputation as the miser descends to in pursuit of gold."

"Suppose a nation in some distant region should take the Bible for their only law book and every member should regulate his conduct by the precepts there exhibited. ... What a Eutopia — What a Paradise would this region be!"

"Tis impossible to judge with much Precision of the true Motives and Qualities of human Actions, or of the Propriety of Rules contrived to govern them, without considering with like Attention, all the Passions, Appetites, Affections in Nature from which they flow. An intimate Knowledge therefore of the intellectual and moral World is the sole foundation on which a stable structure of Knowledge can be erected."

"Tis impossible to avail our selves of the genuine Powers of Eloquence, without examining in their Elements and first Principles, the Force and Harmony of Numbers, as employed by the Poets and orators of ancient and modern times, and without considering the natural Powers of Imagination, and the Disposition of Mankind to Metaphor and figure, which will require the Knowledge of the true Principles of Grammar, and Rhetoric, and of the best classical Authors. Now to what higher object, to what greater Character, can any Mortal aspire, than to be possessed of all this Knowledge, well digested, and ready at Command, to assist the feeble and Friendless, to discountenance the haughty and lawless, to procure Redress of Wrongs, the Advancement of Right, to assert and maintain Liberty and Virtue, to discourage and abolish Tyranny and Vice?"

"A pen is certainly an excellent instrument to fix a man's attention and to inflame his ambition."

"A native of America who cannot read and write is as rare an appearance as a Jacobite or a Roman Catholic, that is, as rare as a comet or an earthquake."

"The preservation of the means of knowledge among the lowest ranks is of more importance to the public than all the property of all the rich men in the country."

"I always consider the settlement of America with reverence and wonder, as the opening of a grand scene and design in providence, for the illumination of the ignorant and the emancipation of the slavish part of mankind all over the earth."

"The poor people, it is true, have been much less successful than the great. They have seldom found either leisure or opportunity to form a union and exert their strength; ignorant as they were of arts and letters, they have seldom been able to frame and support a regular opposition. This, however, has been known by the great to be the temper of mankind; and they have accordingly labored, in all ages, to wrest from the populace, as they are contemptuously called, the knowledge of their rights and wrongs, and the power to assert the former or redress the latter. I say RIGHTS, for such they have, undoubtedly, antecedent to all earthly government, — Rights, that cannot be repealed or restrained by human laws — Rights, derived from the great Legislator of the universe."

"Liberty must at all hazards be supported. We have a right to it, derived from our Maker. But if we had not, our fathers have earned and bought it for us, at the expense of their ease, their estates, their pleasure, and their blood."

"Liberty cannot be preserved without a general knowledge among the people, who have a right, from the frame of their nature, to knowledge, as their great Creator, who does nothing in vain, has given them understandings, and a desire to know; but besides this, they have a right, an indisputable, unalienable, indefeasible, divine right to that most dreaded and envied kind of knowledge, I mean, of the characters and conduct of their rulers. Rulers are no more than attorneys, agents, and trustees, of the people; and if the cause, the interest, and trust, is insidiously betrayed, or wantonly trifled away, the people have a right to revoke the authority that they themselves have deputed, and to constitute other and better agents, attorneys and trustees."

"The jaws of power are always open to devour, and her arm is always stretched out, if possible, to destroy the freedom of thinking, speaking, and writing."

"Be not intimidated, therefore, by any terrors, from publishing with the utmost freedom, whatever can be warranted by the laws of your country; nor suffer yourselves to be wheedled out of your liberties by any pretenses of politeness, delicacy, or decency. These, as they are often used, are but three different names for hypocrisy, chicanery, and cowardice."

"Let us banish for ever from our minds, my countrymen, all such unworthy ideas of the king, his ministry, and parliament. Let us not suppose that all are become luxurious, effeminate, and unreasonable, on the other side the water, as many designing persons would insinuate. Let us presume, what is in fact true, that the spirit of liberty is as ardent as ever among the body of the nation, though a few individuals may be corrupted."

"Let us tenderly and kindly cherish, therefore, the means of knowledge. Let us dare to read, think, speak, and write. Let every order and degree among the people rouse their attention and animate their resolution. Let them all become attentive to the grounds and principles of government, ecclesiastical and civil. Let us study the law of nature; search into the spirit of the British constitution; read the histories of ancient ages; contemplate the great examples of Greece and Rome; set before us the conduct of our own British ancestors, who have defended for us the inherent rights of mankind against foreign and domestic tyrants and usurpers, against arbitrary kings and cruel priests, in short, against the gates of earth and hell."

"Let the pulpit resound with the doctrines and sentiments of religious liberty. Let us hear the danger of thralldom to our consciences from ignorance, extreme poverty, and dependence, in short, from civil and political slavery. Let us see delineated before us the true map of man. Let us hear the dignity of his nature, and the noble rank he holds among the works of God, that consenting to slavery is a sacrilegious breach of trust, as offensive in the sight of God as it is derogatory from our own honor or interest or happiness, and that God Almighty has promulgated from heaven, liberty, peace, and good-will to man!"

"Let the bar proclaim, "the laws, the rights, the generous plan of power" delivered down from remote antiquity, inform the world of the mighty struggles and numberless sacrifices made by our ancestors in defense of freedom. Let it be known, that British liberties are not the grants of princes or parliaments, but original rights, conditions of original contracts, coequal with prerogative, and coeval with government; that many of our rights are inherent and essential, agreed on as maxims, and established as preliminaries, even before a parliament existed. Let them search for the foundations of British laws and government in the frame of human nature, in the constitution of the intellectual and moral world. There let us see that truth, liberty, justice, and benevolence, are its everlasting basis; and if these could be removed, the superstructure is overthrown of course."

"Let every declamation turn upon the beauty of liberty and virtue, and the deformity, turpitude, and malignity, of slavery and vice. Let the public disputations become researches into the grounds and nature and ends of government, and the means of preserving the good and demolishing the evil. Let the dialogues, and all the exercises, become the instruments of impressing on the tender mind, and of spreading and distributing far and wide, the ideas of Righteousness and the sensations of freedom. In a word, let every sluice of knowledge be opened and set a-flowing."

"The encroachments upon liberty in the reigns of the first James and the first Charles, by turning the general attention of learned men to government, are said to have produced the greatest number of consummate statesmen which has ever been seen in any age or nation."

"There seems to be a direct and formal design on foot, to enslave all America. This, however, must be done by degrees. The first step that is intended, seems to be an entire subversion of the whole system of our fathers, by the introduction of the canon and feudal law into America. The canon and feudal systems, though greatly mutilated in England, are not yet destroyed. Like the temples and palaces in which the great contrivers of them once worshipped and inhabited, they exist in ruins; and much of the domineering spirit of them still remains. The designs and labors of a certain society, to introduce the former of them into America, have been well exposed to the public by a writer of great abilities; and the further attempts to the same purpose, that may be made by that society, or by the ministry or parliament, I leave to the conjectures of the thoughtful."

"These are not the vapors of a melancholy mind, nor the effusions of envy, disappointed ambition, nor of a spirit of opposition to government, but the emanations of a heart that burns for its country's welfare. No one of any feeling, born and educated in this once happy country, can consider the numerous distresses, the gross indignities, the barbarous ignorance, the haughty usurpations, that we have reason to fear are meditating for ourselves, our children, our neighbors, in short, for all our countrymen and all their posterity, without the utmost agonies of heart and many tears."

"We find, in the rules laid down by the greatest English Judges, who have been the brightest of mankind; We are to look upon it as more beneficial, that many guilty persons should escape unpunished, than one innocent person should suffer. The reason is, because it’s of more importance to community, that innocence should be protected, than it is, that guilt should be punished; for guilt and crimes are so frequent in the world, that all of them cannot be punished; and many times they happen in such a manner, that it is not of much consequence to the public, whether they are punished or not. But when innocence itself, is brought to the bar and condemned, especially to die, the subject will exclaim, it is immaterial to me, whether I behave well or ill; for virtue itself, is no security. And if such a sentiment as this, should take place in the mind of the subject, there would be an end to all security what so ever."

"There is danger from all men. The only maxim of a free government ought to be to trust no man living with power to endanger the public liberty."

"This is the most magnificent movement of all! There is a dignity, a majesty, a sublimity, in this last effort of the patriots that I greatly admire. The people should never rise without doing something to be remembered — something notable and striking. This destruction of the tea is so bold, so daring, so firm, intrepid and inflexible, and it must have so important consequences, and so lasting, that I can't but consider it as an epocha in history!"

"But a Constitution of Government once changed from Freedom, can never be restored. Liberty, once lost, is lost forever."

"But America is a great, unwieldy Body. Its Progress must be slow. It is like a large Fleet sailing under Convoy. The fleetest Sailors must wait for the dullest and slowest. Like a Coach and six—the swiftest Horses must be slackened and the slowest quickened, that all may keep an even Pace."

"Human nature with all its infirmities and depravation is still capable of great things. It is capable of attaining to degrees of wisdom and goodness, which we have reason to believe, appear as respectable in the estimation of superior intelligences. Education makes a greater difference between man and man, than nature has made between man and brute. The virtues and powers to which men may be trained, by early education and constant discipline, are truly sublime and astonishing. Newton and Locke are examples of the deep sagacity which may be acquired by long habits of thinking and study."

"There is, in the human Breast, a social Affection, which extends to our whole Species."

"I agree with you that in politics the middle way is none at all."

"Let them revere nothing but religion, morality and liberty."

"Is there no way for two friendly souls to converse together, although the bodies are 400 miles off? Yes, by letter. But I want a better communication. I want to hear your think, or to see your thoughts. The conclusion of your letter makes my heart throb more than a cannonade would. You bid me burn your letters. But I must forget you first."

"There is something very unnatural and odious in a government a thousand leagues off. A whole government of our own choice, managed by persons whom we love, revere, and can confide in, has charms in it for which men will fight."

"Objects of the most Stupendous Magnitude, Measures in which the Lives and Liberties of Millions, born and unborn are most essentially interested, are now before Us. We are in the very midst of a Revolution, the most compleat, unexpected, and remarkable of any in the History of Nations. A few Matters must be dispatched before I can return. Every Colony must be induced to institute a perfect Government. All the Colonies must confederate together, in some solemn Compact. The Colonies must be declared free and independent states, and Embassadors, must be Sent abroad to foreign Courts, to solicit their Acknowledgment of Us, as Sovereign States, and to form with them, at least with some of them commercial Treaties of Friendship and Alliance. When these Things shall be once well finished, or in a Way of being so, I shall think that I have answered the End of my Creation, and sing with Pleasure my Nunc Dimittes, or if it should be the Will of Heaven that I should live a little longer, return to my Farm and Family, ride Circuits, plead Law, or judge Causes, just as you please."

"Statesmen, my dear Sir, may plan and speculate for Liberty, but it is Religion and Morality alone, which can establish the Principles upon which Freedom can securely stand. The only foundation of a free Constitution is pure Virtue, and if this cannot be inspired into our People in a greater Measure than they have it now, They may change their Rulers and the forms of Government, but they will not obtain a lasting Liberty. They will only exchange Tyrants and Tyrannies."

"Yesterday the greatest question was decided which ever was debated in America; and a greater perhaps never was, nor will be, decided among men. A resolution was passed without one dissenting colony, "that these United Colonies are, and of right ought to be, free and independent States.""

"I am well aware of the Toil and Blood and Treasure, that it will cost Us to maintain this Declaration, and support and defend these States. Yet through all the Gloom I can see the Rays of ravishing Light and Glory. I can see that the End is more than worth all the Means. And that Posterity will triumph in that Days Transaction, even although We should rue it, which I trust in God We shall not."

"I am surprised at the suddenness as well as the greatness of this revolution... It is the will of Heaven that the two countries should be sundered forever. It may be the will of Heaven that America shall suffer calamities still more wasting, and distresses yet more dreadful. If this is to be the case it will have this good effect at least. It will inspire us with many virtues which we have not, and correct many errors, follies, and vices which threaten to disturb, dishonor, and destroy us. The furnace of affliction produces refinement in states as well as individuals. And the new Governments we are assuming in every part will require a purification from our vices, and an augmentation of our virtues, or they will be no blessings. The people will have unbounded power, and the people are extremely addicted to corruption and venality, as well as the great. But I must submit all my hopes and fears to an overruling Providence, in which, unfashionable as the faith may be, I firmly believe."

"The second day of July, 1776, will be the most memorable epocha in the history of America. I am apt to believe that it will be celebrated by succeeding generations as the great anniversary festival. It ought to be commemorated as the day of deliverance, by solemn acts of devotion to God Almighty. It ought to be solemnized with pomp and parade, with shows, games, sports, guns, bells, bonfires, and illuminations, from one end of this continent to the other, from this time forward forevermore."

"I long for rural and domestic scenes, for the warbling of Birds and the Prattle of my Children. Don't you think I am somewhat poetical this morning, for one of my Years, and considering the Gravity, and Insipidity of my Employment? — As much as I converse with Sages and Heroes, they have very little of my Love or Admiration. I should prefer the Delights of a Garden to the Dominion of a World."

"Posterity! You will never know, how much it cost the present generation, to preserve your Freedom! — I hope you will make a good use of it. — if you do not, I shall repent in Heaven, that I ever took half the pains to preserve it. —"

"I believe there is no one Principle, which predominates in human Nature so much in every Stage of Life, from the Cradle to the Grave, in Males and females, old and young, black and white, rich and poor, high and low, as this Passion for Superiority."

"Virtue is not always amiable. Integrity is sometimes ruined by prejudices and by passions."

"By my physical constitution I am but an ordinary man … Yet some great events, some cutting expressions, some mean hypocracies, have at times thrown this assemblage of sloth, sleep, and littleness into rage like a lion."

"...it is more importance to the community, that innocence be protected, than it is, that guilt be punished; for guilt and crimes are so frequent in the world, that all of them cannot be punished; and many times they happen in such a manner, that it is not of much consequence to the public, whether they are punished or not. But when innocence itself, is brought to the bar and condemned, especially to die, the subject will exclaim, it is immaterial to me whether I behave well or ill, for virtue itself is no security. And if such a sentiment as this should take place in the mind of the subject, there would be an end to all security whatsoever."

"We have been entertained with a great variety of phrases, to avoid calling this sort of people a mob. Some call them shavers, some call them geniuses. The plain English is, gentlemen, most probably a motley rabble of saucy boys, negroes and mulattoes, Irish teagues and outlandish jack tars."

"Facts are stubborn things; and whatever may be our wishes, our inclinations, or the dictates of our passion, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence..."

"The law no passion can disturb. 'Tis void of desire and fear, lust and anger. 'Tis mens sine affectu, written reason, retaining some measure of the divine perfection. It does not enjoin that which pleases a weak, frail man, but, without any regard to persons, commands that which is good and punishes evil in all, whether rich or poor, high or low. 'Tis deaf, inexorable, inflexible. On the one hand it is inexorable to the cries and lamentations of the prisoners; on the other it is deaf, deaf as an adder to the clamors of the populace."

"Nip the shoots of arbitrary power in the bud, is the only maxim which can ever preserve the liberties of any people."

"We are told: "It is a universal truth, that he that would excite a rebellion, is at heart as great a tyrant as ever wielded the iron rod of oppression." Be it so. We are not exciting a rebellion. Opposition, nay, open, avowed resistance by arms, against usurpation and lawless violence, is not rebellion by the law of God or the land. Resistance to lawful authority makes rebellion. … Remember the frank Veteran acknowledges, that "the word rebel is a convertible term.""

"A government of laws, and not of men."

"Metaphysicians and politicians may dispute forever, but they will never find any other moral principle or foundation of rule or obedience, than the consent of governors and governed."

"We ought to consider what is the end of government, before we determine which is the best form. Upon this point all speculative politicians will agree, that the happiness of society is the end of government, as all Divines and moral Philosophers will agree that the happiness of the individual is the end of man. From this principle it will follow, that the form of government which communicates ease, comfort, security, or, in one word, happiness, to the greatest number of persons, and in the greatest degree, is the best."

"Fear is the foundation of most governments; but it is so sordid and brutal a passion, and renders men in whose breasts it predominates so stupid and miserable, that Americans will not be likely to approve of any political institution which is founded on it."

"When annual elections end, there slavery begins."

"Laws for the liberal education of youth, especially of the lower class of people, are so extremely wise and useful, that, to a humane and generous mind, no expense for this purpose would be thought extravagant."

"The judicial power ought to be distinct from both the legislative and executive, and independent upon both, that so it may be a check upon both, as both should be checks upon that."

"The Science of Government it is my Duty to study, more than all other Sciences: the Art of Legislation and Administration and Negotiation, ought to take Place, indeed to exclude in a manner all other Arts. I must study Politicks and War that my sons may have liberty to study Mathematicks and Philosophy. My sons ought to study Mathematicks and Philosophy, Geography, natural History, Naval Architecture, navigation, Commerce and Agriculture, in order to give their Children a right to study Painting, Poetry, Musick, Architecture, Statuary, Tapestry and Porcelaine."

"There is nothing which I dread so much as a division of the republic into two great parties, each arranged under its leader, and concerting measures in opposition to each other. This, in my humble apprehension, is to be dreaded as the greatest political evil under our Constitution."

"The invasion of Georgia and South Carolina is the first. But why should the invasion of these two States affect the credit of the thirteen, more than the invasion of any two others? Massachusetts and Rhode Island have been invaded by armies much more formidable. New York, Connecticut, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, and Virginia, have been all invaded before. But what has been the issue? Not conquest, not submission. On the contrary, all those States have learned the art of war and the habits of submission to military discipline, and have got themselves well armed, nay, clothed and furnished with a great deal of hard money by these very invasions. And what is more than all the rest, they have got over the fears and terrors that are always occasioned by a first invasion, and are a worse enemy than the English; and besides, they have had such experience of the tyranny and cruelty of the English as have made them more resolute than ever against the English government. Now, why should not the invasion of Georgia and Carolina have the same effects? It is very certain, in the opinion of the Americans themselves, that it will. Besides, the unexampled cruelty of Cornwallis has been enough to revolt even negroes; it has been such as will make the English objects of greater horror there than in any of the other States."

"Great Britain has been moving earth and hell to obtain allies against us, yet it is improper in us to propose an alliance! Great Britain has borrowed all the superfluous wealth of Europe, in Italy, Germany, Holland, Switzerland, and some in France, to murder us, yet it is dishonorable in us to propose to borrow money! By heaven, I would make a bargain with all Europe, if it lay with me. Let all Europe stand still, neither lend men nor money nor ships to England nor America, and let them fight it out alone. I would give my share of millions for such a bargain. America is treated unfairly and ungenerously by Europe. But thus it is, mankind will be servile to tyrannical masters, and basely devoted to vile idols."

"You will never be alone with a poet in your pocket."

"Thanks be to God, that he gave me Stubborness, when I know I am right."

"Neither my father or mother, grandfather or grandmother, great grandfather or great grandmother, nor any other relation that I know of, or care a farthing for, has been in England these one hundred and fifty years; so that you see I have not one drop of blood in my veins but what is American."

"All the perplexities, confusions, and distresses in America arise, not from defects in their constitution or confederation, not from a want of honor or virtue, so much as from downright ignorance of the nature of coin, credit, and circulation."

"The new Government has my best Wishes and most fervent Prayers, for its Success and Prosperity: but whether I shall have any Thing more to do with it, besides praying for it, depends on the future suffrages of Freemen."

"We took the liberty to make some enquiries concerning the ground of their pretentions to make war upon nations who had done them no injury, and observed that we considered all mankind as our friends who had done us no wrong, nor had given us any provocation."

"The Ambassador answered us that it was founded on the laws of their Prophet; that it was written in their Koran; that all nations who should not have acknowledged their authority were sinners; that it was their right and duty to make war upon them wherever they could be found, and to make slaves of all they could take as prisoners; and that every Mussulman who was slain in battle was sure to go to Paradise. He said, also, that the man who was the first to board a vessel had one slave over and above his share, and that when they sprang to the deck of an enemy's ship, every sailor held a dagger in each hand and a third in his mouth; which usually struck such terror into the foe that they cried out for quarter at once. That it was a law that the first who boarded an Enemy’s Vessell should have one slave."

"The rich, the well-born, and the able, acquire an influence among the people that will soon be too much for simple honesty and plain sense, in a house of representatives. The most illustrious of them must, therefore, be separated from the mass, and placed by themselves in a senate; this is, to all honest and useful intents, an ostracism."

"The English nation, for their improvements in the theory of government, has, at least, more merit with the human race than any other among the moderns. The late most beautiful and liberal speculations of many writers, in various parts of Europe, are manifestly derived from English sources. Americans, too, ought for ever to acknowledge their obligations to English writers, or rather have as good a right to indulge a pride in the recollection of them as the inhabitants of the three kingdoms. The original plantation of our country was occasioned, her continual growth has been promoted, and her present liberties have been established by these generous theories."

"The militia and sovereignty are inseparable. In the English constitution, if the whole nation were a militia, there would be a militia to defend the crown, the lords, or the commons, if either were attacked. The crown, though it commands them, has no power to use them improperly, because it cannot pay or subsist them without the consent of the lords and commons; but if the militia are to obey a sovereignty in a single assembly, it is commanded, paid, and subsisted, and a standing army, too, may be raised, paid, and subsisted, by the vote of a majority; the militia, then, must all obey the sovereign majority, or divide, and part follow the majority, and part the minority. This last case is civil war; but, until it comes to this, the whole militia may be employed by the majority in any degree of tyranny and oppression over the minority. The constitution furnishes no resource or remedy; nothing affords a chance of relief but rebellion and civil war. If this terminates in favor of the minority, they will tyrannize in their turn, exasperated by revenge, in addition to ambition and avarice; if the majority prevail, their domination becomes more cruel, and soon ends in one despot. It must be made a sacred maxim, that the militia obey the executive power, which represents the whole people in the execution of laws. To suppose arms in the hands of citizens, to be used at individual discretion, except in private self-defence, or by partial orders of towns, counties, or districts of a state, is to demolish every constitution, and lay the laws prostrate, so that liberty can be enjoyed by no man; it is a dissolution of the government. The fundamental law of the militia is, that it be created, directed, and commanded by the laws, and ever for the support of the laws."

"Children should be educated and instructed in the principles of freedom."

"The moment the idea is admitted into society, that property is not as sacred as the law of God, and that there is not a force of law and public justice to protect it, anarchy and tyranny commence. If "Thou shall not covet," and "Thou shall not steal," are not commandments of Heaven, they must be made inviolable precepts in every society, before it can be civilized or made free."

"The right of a nation to kill a tyrant, in cases of necessity, can no more be doubted, than to hang a robber, or kill a flea. But killing one tyrant only makes way for worse, unless the people have sense, spirit and honesty enough to establish and support a constitution guarded at all points against the tyranny of the one, the few, and the many. Let it be the study, therefore, of lawgivers and philosophers, to enlighten the people's understandings and improve their morals, by good and general education; to enable them to comprehend the scheme of government, and to know upon what points their liberties depend; to dissipate those vulgar prejudices and popular superstitions that oppose themselves to good government; and to teach them that obedience to the laws is as indispensable in them as in lords and kings."

"A single assembly will never be a steady guardian of the laws, if Machiavel is right, when he says, Men are never good but through necessity: on the contrary, when good and evil are left to their choice, they will not fail to throw every thing into disorder and confusion. Hunger and poverty may make men industrious, but laws only can make them good; for, if men were so of themselves, there would be no occasion for laws; but, as the case is far otherwise, they are absolutely necessary."

"The proposition, that the people are the best keepers of their own liberties, is not true; they are the worst conceivable; they are no keepers at all; they can neither judge, act, think, or will, as a political body."

"There never was yet a people who must not have somebody or something to represent the dignity of the state, the majesty of the people, call it what you will — a doge, an avoyer, an archon, a president, a consul, a syndic; this becomes at once an object of ambition and dispute, and, in time, of division, faction, sedition, and rebellion."

"The History of our Revolution will be one continued Lye from one end to the other. The essence of the whole will be that Dr. Franklins electrical Rod, smote the Earth and out sprung General Washington. That Franklin electrified him with his rod—and thence forward these two conducted all the Policy, Negotiations, Legislatures and War."

"My country has in its wisdom contrived for me the most insignificant office that ever the invention of man contrived or his imagination conceived; and as I can do neither good nor evil, I must be borne away by others and meet the common fate."

"I read my eyes out and can't read half enough. … The more one reads the more one sees we have to read."

"The Christian religion is, above all the religions that ever prevailed or existed in ancient or modern times, the religion of wisdom, virtue, equity, and humanity, let the blackguard Paine say what he will; it is resignation to God, it is goodness itself to man."

"Tacitus appears to have been as great an enthusiast as Petrarch for the revival of the republic and universal empire. He has exerted the vengeance of history upon the emperors, but has veiled the conspiracies against them, and the incorrigible corruption of the people which probably provoked their most atrocious cruelties. Tyranny can scarcely be practised upon a virtuous and wise people."

"It is folly to anticipate evils, and madness to create imaginary ones."

"Omnium rerum domina, virtus. Virtue is the mistress of all things. Virtue is the master of all things. Therefore a nation that should never do wrong must necessarily govern the world. The might of virtue, the power of virtue, is not a very common topic, not so common as it should be."

"The consequences arising from the continual accumulation of public debts in other countries ought to admonish us to be careful to prevent their growth in our own."

"[N]o pretext, arising from religious opinions, shall ever produce an interruption of the harmony existing between the two countries."

"While our country remains untainted with the principles and manners which are now producing desolation in so many parts of the world; while she continues sincere, and incapable of insidious and impious policy, we shall have the strongest reason to rejoice in the local destination assigned us by Providence. But should the people of America once become capable of that deep simulation towards one another, and towards foreign nations, which assumes the language of justice and moderation, while it is practising iniquity and extravagance, and displays in the most captivating manner the charming pictures of candour, frankness, and sincerity, while it is rioting in rapine and insolence, this country will be the most miserable habitation in the world. Because we have no government, armed with power, capable of contending with human passions, unbridled by morality and religion. Avarice, ambition, revenge and licentiousness would break the strongest cords of our Constitution, as a whale goes through a net. Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other. Oaths in this country are as yet universally considered as sacred obligations. That which you have taken, and so solemnly repeated on that venerable ground, is an ample pledge of your sincerity and devotion to your country and its government."

"I have thought proper to recommend, and I do hereby recommend accordingly, that Thursday, the 25th day of April next, be observed throughout the United States of America as a day of solemn humiliation, fasting, and prayer; that the citizens on that day abstain as far as may be from their secular occupations, devote the time to the sacred duties of religion in public and in private; that they call to mind our numerous offenses against the Most High God, confess them before Him with the sincerest penitence, implore His pardoning mercy, through the Great Mediator and Redeemer, for our past transgressions, and that through the grace of His Holy Spirit we may be disposed and enabled to yield a more suitable obedience to His righteous requisitions in time to come; that He would interpose to arrest the progress of that impiety and licentiousness in principle and practice so offensive to Himself and so ruinous to mankind; that He would make us deeply sensible that "righteousness exalteth a nation, but sin is a reproach to any people;" that He would turn us from our transgressions and turn His displeasure from us; that He would withhold us from unreasonable discontent, from disunion, faction, sedition, and insurrection; that He would preserve our country from the desolating sword; that He would save our cities and towns from a repetition of those awful pestilential visitations under which they have lately suffered so severely, and that the health of our inhabitants generally may be precious in His sight; that He would favor us with fruitful seasons and so bless the labors of the husbandman as that there may be food in abundance for man and beast; that He would prosper our commerce, manufactures, and fisheries, and give success to the people in all their lawful industry and enterprise; that He would smile on our colleges, academies, schools, and seminaries of learning, and make them nurseries of sound science, morals, and religion; that He would bless all magistrates, from the highest to the lowest, give them the true spirit of their station, make them a terror to evil doers and a praise to them that do well; that He would preside over the councils of the nation at this critical period, enlighten them to a just discernment of the public interest, and save them from mistake, division, and discord; that He would make succeed our preparations for defense and bless our armaments by land and by sea; that He would put an end to the effusion of human blood and the accumulation of human misery among the contending nations of the earth by disposing them to justice, to equity, to benevolence, and to peace; and that he would extend the blessings of knowledge, of true liberty, and of pure and undefiled religion throughout the world."

"Although neither nation has been brought to admit that they were chargeable with the first infraction, yet no American can forget the carrying off the negroes."

"A desire to be observed, considered, esteemed, praised, beloved, and admired by his fellows is one of the earliest, as well as the keenest dispositions discovered in the heart of man."

"The world grows more enlightened. Knowledge is more equally diffused. Newspapers, magazines, and circulating libraries have made mankind wiser. Titles and distinctions, ranks and orders, parade and ceremony, are all going out of fashion. This is roundly and frequently asserted in the streets, and sometimes on theatres of higher rank. Some truth there is in it; and if the opportunity were temperately improved, to the reformation of abuses, the rectification of errors, and the dissipation of pernicious prejudices, a great advantage it might be. But, on the other hand, false inferences may be drawn from it, which may make mankind wish for the age of dragons, giants, and fairies."

"Are riches, honors, and beauty going out of fashion? Is not the rage for them, on the contrary, increased faster than improvement in knowledge? As long as either of these are in vogue, will there not be emulations and rivalries? Does not the increase of knowledge in any man increase his emulation; and the diffusion of knowledge among men multiply rivalries? Has the progress of science, arts, and letters yet discovered that there are no passions in human nature? no ambition, avarice, or desire of fame? Are these passions cooled, diminished, or extinguished? Is the rage for admiration less ardent in men or women? Have these propensities less a tendency to divisions, controversies, seditions, mutinies, and civil wars than formerly? On the contrary, the more knowledge is diffused, the more the passions are extended, and the more furious they grow."

"Property must be secured, or liberty cannot exist. But if unlimited or unbalanced power of disposing property, be put into the hands of those who have no property, France will find, as we have found, the lamb committed to the custody of the wolf. In such a case, all the pathetic exhortations and addresses of the national assembly to the people, to respect property, will be regarded no more than the warbles of the songsters of the forest. The great art of law-giving consists in balancing the poor against the rich in the legislature, and in constituting the legislative a perfect balance against the executive power, at the same time that no individual or party can become its rival. The essence of a free government consists in an effectual control of rivalries. The executive and the legislative powers are natural rivals; and if each has not an effectual control over the other, the weaker will ever be the lamb in the paws of the wolf. The nation which will not adopt an equilibrium of power must adopt a despotism. There is no other alternative. Rivalries must be controlled, or they will throw all things into confusion; and there is nothing but despotism or a balance of power which can control them."

"When it was first perceived, in early times, that no middle course for America remained between unlimited submission to a foreign legislature and a total independence of its claims, men of reflection were less apprehensive of danger from the formidable power of fleets and armies they must determine to resist than from those contests and dissensions which would certainly arise concerning the forms of government to be instituted over the whole and over the parts of this extensive country."

"What other form of government, indeed, can so well deserve our esteem and love?"

"And may that Being who is supreme over all, the Patron of Order, the Fountain of Justice, and the Protector in all ages of the world of virtuous liberty, continue His blessing upon this nation and its Government and give it all possible success and duration consistent with the ends of His providence."

"I pray Heaven to bestow the best of blessings on this house and all that shall hereafter inhabit it. May none but honest and wise men ever rule under this roof."

"I had heard my father say that he never knew a piece of land run away or break."

"There is one Resolution I will not omit. Resolved that no Slaves be imported into any of the thirteen colonies."

"Our obligations to our country never cease but with our lives."

"I will insist that the Hebrews have done more to civilize men than any other nation. If I were an atheist, and believed in blind eternal fate, I should still believe that fate had ordained the Jews to be the most essential instrument for civilizing the nations. If I were an atheist of the other sect, who believe or pretend to believe that all is ordered by chance, I should believe that chance had ordered the Jews to preserve and propagate to all mankind the doctrine of a supreme, intelligent, wise, almighty sovereign of the universe, which I believe to be the great essential principle of all morality, and consequently of all civilization."

"When I went home to my family in May, 1770, from the town meeting in Boston, which was the first I had ever attended, and where I had been chosen in my absence, without any solicitation, one of their representatives, I said to my wife, "I have accepted a seat in the House of Representatives, and thereby have consented to my own ruin, to your ruin, and to the ruin of our children. I give you this warning, that you may prepare your mind for your fate." She burst into tears, but instantly cried out in a transport of magnanimity, "Well, I am willing in this cause to run all risks with you, and be ruined with you, if you are ruined." These were times, my friend, in Boston, which tried women's souls as well as men's."

"Although I have never sought popularity by any animated speeches or inflammatory publications against the slavery of the blacks, my opinion against it has always been known, and my practice has been so conformable to my sentiments that I have always employed freemen, both as domestics and laborers, and never in my life did I own a slave. The abolition of slavery must be gradual, and accomplished with much caution and circumspection. Violent means and measures would produce greater violations of justice and humanity than the continuance of the practice. Neither Mr. Mifflin nor yourselves, I presume, would be willing to venture on exertions which would probably excite insurrections among the blacks to rise against their masters, and imbue their hands in innocent blood."

"There are many other evils in our country which are growing, whereas the practice of slavery is fast diminishing, and threaten to bring punishment on our land more immediately than the oppression of the blacks. That sacred regard to truth in which you and I were educated, and which is certainly taught and enjoined from on high, seems to be vanishing from among us. A general relaxation of education and government, a general debauchery as well as dissipation, produced by pestilential philosophical principles of Epicurus, infinitely more than by shows and theatrical entertainments; these are, in my opinion, more serious and threatening evils than even the slavery of the blacks, hateful as that is. I might even add that I have been informed that the condition of the common sort of white people in some of the Southern States, particularly Virginia, is more oppressed, degraded, and miserable, than that of the negroes. These vices and these miseries deserve the serious and compassionate consideration of friends, as well as the slave trade and the degraded state of the blacks. I wish you success in your benevolent endeavors to relieve the distresses of our fellow creatures, and shall always be ready to cooperate with you as far as my means and opportunities can reasonably be expected to extend."

"Callender and Sally will be remembered as long as Jefferson as Blotts in his Character. The story of the latter, is a natural and almost unavoidable Consequence of that foul contagion in the human Character [—] Negro Slavery."

"You think it impossible the Convention could have a thought of war with Great Britain, and the conquest of Canada. In this point I differ from you very widely. The conduct of Great Britain, and the conduct of our States, too, was such as to keep up very serious apprehensions between the two powers. The treaty of peace was not fulfilled on either side."

"The Declaration of Independence I always considered as a Theatrical Show. Jefferson ran away with all the stage effect of that; i.e. all the Glory of it."

"There are two tyrants in human life who domineer in all nations, in Indians and Negroes, in Tartars and Arabs, in Hindoos and Chinese, in Greeks and Romans, in Britons and Gauls, as well as in our simple, youthful, and beloved United States of America. These two tyrants are fashion and party. They are sometimes at variance, and I know not whether their mutual hostility is not the only security of human happiness. But they are forever struggling for an alliance with each other; and, when they are united, truth, reason, honor, justice, gratitude, and humanity itself in combination are no match for the coalition. Upon the maturest reflection of a long experience, I am much inclined to believe that fashion is the worst of all tyrants, because he is the original source, cause, preserver, and supporter of all others."

"The general principles on which the fathers achieved independence, were … the general principles of Christianity, in which all those sects were united, and the general principles of English and American liberty, in which all those young men united, and which had united all parties in America, in majorities sufficient to assert and maintain her independence. Now I will avow, that I then believed and now believe that those general principles of Christianity are as eternal and immutable as the existence and attributes of God; and that those principles of liberty are as unalterable as human nature and our terrestrial, mundane system."

"While all other Sciences have advanced, that of Government is at a stand; little better understood; little better practiced now than three or four thousand years ago."

"You and I ought not to die before we have explained ourselves to each other."

"Indeed, Mr. Jefferson, what could be invented to debase the ancient Christianism which Greeks, Romans, Hebrews and Christian factions, above all the Catholics, have not fraudulently imposed upon the public? Miracles after miracles have rolled down in torrents."

"Five and forty years ago, when any terrible News arrived from England of their hostile designs against our Liberties, when the people, gaping and staring, pale and trembling, asked me, "What I thought of the News," my invariable Answer was, "The worse, the better.""

"If the Christian religion, as I understand it, or as you understand it, should maintain its ground, as I believe it will, yet Platonic, Pythagoric, Hindoo, and cabalistic Christianity, which is Catholic Christianity, and which has prevailed for 1,500 years, has received a mortal wound, of which the monster must finally die. Yet so strong is his constitution, that he may endure for centuries before he expires."

"As long as Property exists, it will accumulate in Individuals and Families. As long as Marriage exists, Knowledge, Property and Influence will accumulate in Families."

"Government has no right to hurt a hair on the head of an atheist for his opinions. Let him have a care of his practices."

"As to the history of the revolution, my ideas may be peculiar, perhaps singular. What do we mean by the Revolution? The war? That was no part of the revolution; it was only an effect and consequence of it. The revolution was in the minds of the people, and this was effected from 1760–1775, in the course of fifteen years, before a drop of blood was shed at Lexington."

"We may appeal to every page of history we have hitherto turned over, for proofs irrefragable, that the people, when they have been unchecked, have been as unjust, tyrannical, brutal, barbarous and cruel as any king or senate possessed of uncontrollable power."

"All projects of government, formed upon a supposition of continual vigilance, sagacity, and virtue, firmness of the people, when possessed of the exercise of supreme power, are cheats and delusions."

"The fundamental article of my political creed is that despotism, or unlimited sovereignty, or absolute power, is the same in a majority of a popular assembly, an aristocratical council, an oligarchical junto, and a single emperor. Equally arbitrary, cruel, bloody, and in every respect diabolical."

"Power always sincerely, conscientiously, de très bon foi, believes itself right. Power always thinks it has a great soul and vast views, beyond the comprehension of the weak; and that it is doing God's Service, when it is violating all his Laws."

"Government has no right to hurt the hair of an Atheist for his Opinions. Let him have a care of his Practices."

"I almost shudder at the thought of alluding to the most fatal example of the abuses of grief which the history of mankind has preserved — the Cross. Consider what calamities that engine of grief has produced! With the rational respect that is due to it, knavish priests have added prostitutions of it, that fill or might fill the blackest and bloodiest pages of human history."

"We have now, it Seems a National Bible Society, to propagate King James's Bible, through all Nations. Would it not be better to apply these pious Subscriptions, to purify Christendom from the Corruptions of Christianity; than to propagate those Corruptions in Europe Asia, Africa and America! … Conclude not from all this, that I have renounced the Christian religion, or that I agree with Dupuis in all his Sentiments. Far from it. I see in every Page, Something to recommend Christianity in its Purity and Something to discredit its Corruptions. … The Ten Commandments and the Sermon on the Mount contain my Religion."

"Let the human mind loose. It must be loose. It will be loose. Superstition and dogmatism cannot confine it."

"Twenty times in the course of my late reading have I been on the point of breaking out, "This would be the best of all possible worlds, if there were no religion in it!!!" But in this exclamation I would have been as fanatical as Bryant or Cleverly. Without religion this world would be something not fit to be mentioned in polite company, I mean Hell."

"When people talk of the Freedom of Writing, Speaking, or thinking, I cannot choose but laugh. No such thing ever existed. No such thing now exists; but I hope it will exist. But it must be hundreds of years after you and I shall write and speak no more."

"I really wish the Jews again in Judea, an independent nation, for, as I believe, the most enlightened men of it have participated in the amelioration of the philosophy of the age; once restored to an independent government, and no longer persecuted, they would soon wear away some of the asperities and peculiarities of their character, possibly in time become liberal Unitarian Christians, for your Jehovah is our Jehovah, and your God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob is our God."

"Abuse of words has been the great instrument of sophistry and chicanery, of party, faction, and division of society."

"I Shall not pause to consider whether my Opinion will be popular or unpopular with the Slave Holders, or Slave Traders, in the Northern the Middle, the Southern, or the Western, States—I respect all those who are necessarily subjected to this Evil.—But Negro Slavery is an evil of Colossal Magnitude. … I am therefore utterly averse to the admission of Slavery into the Missouri Territory, and heartily wish that every Constitutional measure may be adopted for the preservation of it."

"Liberty, according to my metaphysics, is an intellectual quality; an attribute that belongs not to fate nor chance. Neither possesses it, neither is capable of it. There is nothing moral or immoral in the idea of it. The definition of it is a self-determining power in an intellectual agent. It implies thought and choice and power; it can elect between objects, indifferent in point of morality, neither morally good nor morally evil. If the substance in which this quality, attribute, adjective, call it what you will, exists, has a moral sense, a conscience, a moral faculty; if it can distinguish between moral good and moral evil, and has power to choose the former and refuse the latter, it can, if it will, choose the evil and reject the good, as we see in experience it very often does."

"I do not say that democracy has been more pernicious on the whole, and in the long run, than monarchy or aristocracy. Democracy has never been and never can be so durable as aristocracy or monarchy; but while it lasts, it is more bloody than either."

"Remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There never was a democracy yet that did not commit suicide. It is in vain to say that democracy is less vain, less proud, less selfish, less ambitious, or less avaricious than aristocracy or monarchy. It is not true, in fact, and nowhere appears in history. Those passions are the same in all men, under all forms of simple government, and when unchecked, produce the same effects of fraud, violence, and cruelty."

"The priesthood have, in all ancient nations, nearly monopolized learning. Read over again all the accounts we have of Hindoos, Chaldeans, Persians, Greeks, Romans, Celts, Teutons, we shall find that priests had all the knowledge, and really governed mankind. Examine Mahometanism, trace Christianity from its first promulgation; knowledge has been almost exclusively confined to the clergy. And, even since the Reformation, when or where has existed a Protestant or dissenting sect who would tolerate ? The blackest billingsgate, most ungentlemanly insolence, the most yahooish brutality is patiently endured, countenanced, propagated and applauded. But touch a solemn truth in collision with a dogma of a sect, though capable of the clearest proof, and you will soon find you have disturbed a nest, and the hornets will swarm about your legs and hands, and fly into your face and eyes."

"The American Revolution was not a common event. Its effects and consequences have already been awful over a great part of the globe. And when and where are they to cease? But what do we mean by the American Revolution? Do we mean the American war? The Revolution was effected before the war commenced. The Revolution was in the minds and hearts of the people; a change in their religious sentiments of their duties and obligations. … This radical change in the principles, opinions, sentiments, and affections of the people, was the real American Revolution."

"By what means this great and important alteration in the religious, moral, political, and social character of the people of thirteen colonies, all distinct, unconnected, and independent of each other, was begun, pursued, and accomplished, it is surely interesting to humanity to investigate, and perpetuate to posterity. To this end, it is greatly to be desired, that young men of letters in all the States, especially in the thirteen original States, would undertake the laborious, but certainly interesting and amusing task, of searching and collecting all the records, pamphlets, newspapers, and even handbills, which in any way contributed to change the temper and views of the people, and compose them into an independent nation."

"The colonies had grown up under constitutions of government so different, there was so great a variety of religions, they were composed of so many different nations, their customs, manners, and habits had so little resemblance, and their intercourse had been so rare, and their knowledge of each other so imperfect, that to unite them in the same principles in theory and the same system of action, was certainly a very difficult enterprise. The complete accomplishment of it, in so short a time and by such simple means, was perhaps a singular example in the history of mankind. Thirteen clocks were made to strike together — a perfection of mechanism, which no artist had ever before effected. In this research, the gloriole of individual gentlemen, and of separate States, is of little consequence. The means and the measures are the proper objects of investigation. These may be of use to posterity, not only in this nation, but in South America and all other countries. They may teach mankind that revolutions are no trifles; that they ought never to be undertaken rashly; nor without deliberate consideration and sober reflection; nor without a solid, immutable, eternal foundation of justice and humanity; nor without a people possessed of intelligence, fortitude, and integrity sufficient to carry them with steadiness, patience, and perseverance, through all the vicissitudes of fortune, the fiery trials and melancholy disasters they may have to encounter."

"No man could have written from memory Mr. Otis’s argument of four or five hours, against the acts of trade, as revenue laws, and against writs of assistance, as a tyrannical engine to execute them, the next day after it was spoken. How awkward, then, would be an attempt to do it after a lapse of fifty-seven years! Nevertheless, some of the heads of his discourse are so indelibly imprinted on my mind, that I will endeavor to give you some very short hints of them."

"He began with an exordium, containing an apology for his resignation of the office of Advocate-General in the Court of Admiralty; and for his appearance in that cause, in opposition to the Crown, and in favor of the town of Boston, and the merchants of Boston and Salem."

"A dissertation on the rights of man in a state of nature. He asserted that every man, merely natural, was an independent sovereign, subject to no law, but the law written on his heart, and revealed to him by his Maker in the constitution of his nature and the inspiration of his understanding and his conscience. His right to his life, his liberty, no created being could rightfully contest. Nor was his right to his property less incontestable. The club that he had snapped from a tree, for a staff or for defence, was his own. His bow and arrow were his own; if by a pebble he had killed a partridge or a squirrel, it was his own. No creature, man or beast, had a right to take it from him. If he had taken an eel, or a smelt, or a sculpion, it was his property. In short, he sported upon this topic with so much wit and humor, and at the same time so much indisputable truth and reason, that he was not less entertaining than instructive. He asserted that these rights were inherent and inalienable. That they never could be surrendered or alienated but by idiots or madmen, and all the acts of idiots and lunatics were void, and not obligatory by all the laws of God and man."

"Nor were the poor negroes forgotten. Not a Quaker in Philadelphia, or Mr. Jefferson, of Virginia, ever asserted the rights of negroes in stronger terms. Young as I was, and ignorant as I was, I shuddered at the doctrine he taught; and I have all my lifetime shuddered, and still shudder, at the consequences that may be drawn from such premises. Shall we say, that the rights of masters and servants clash, and can be decided only by force? I adore the idea of gradual abolitions! But who shall decide how fast or how slowly these abolitions shall be made?"

"From individual independence he proceeded to association. If it was inconsistent with the dignity of human nature to say that men were gregarious animals, like wild horses and wild geese, it surely could offend no delicacy to say they were social animals by nature, that there were mutual sympathies, and, above all, the sweet attraction of the sexes, which must soon draw them together in little groups, and by degrees in larger congregations, for mutual assistance and defence. And this must have happened before any formal covenant, by express words or signs, was concluded. When general counsels and deliberations commenced, the objects could be no other than the mutual defence and security of every individual for his life, his liberty, and his property. To suppose them to have surrendered these in any other way than by equal rules and general consent was to suppose them idiots or madmen, whose acts were never binding. To suppose them surprised by fraud, or compelled by force, into any other compact, such fraud and such force could confer no obligation. Every man had a right to trample it under foot whenever he pleased. In short, he asserted these rights to be derived only from nature and the author of nature; that they were inherent, inalienable, and indefeasible by any laws, pacts, contracts, covenants, or stipulations, which man could devise."

"Banks have done more injury to the religion, morality, tranquility, prosperity, and even wealth of the nation than they can have done or ever will do good."

"The turpitude, the inhumanity, the cruelty, and the infamy of the African commerce in slaves, have been so impressively represented to the public by the highest powers of eloquence, that nothing that I can say would increase the just odium in which it is and ought to be held. Every measure of prudence, therefore, ought to be assumed for the eventual total extirpation of slavery from the United States."

"I have, through my whole life, held the practice of slavery in such abhorrence, that I have never owned a negro or any other slave, though I have lived for many years in times, when the practice was not disgraceful, when the best men in my vicinity thought it not inconsistent with their character, and when it has cost me thousands of dollars for the labor and subsistence of free men, which I might have saved by the purchase of negroes at times when they were very cheap."

"When we say God is a spirit, we know what we mean, as well as we do when we say that the pyramids of Egypt are matter. Let us be content, therefore, to believe him to be a spirit, that is, an essence that we know nothing of, in which originally and necessarily reside all energy, all power, all capacity, all activity, all wisdom, all goodness."

"I shudder when I think of the calamities which slavery is likely to produce in this country. You would think me mad if I were to describe my anticipations… If the gangrene is not stopped I can see nothing but insurrection of the blacks against the whites."

"Can a free government possibly exist with the Roman Catholic religion?"

"Slavery in this Country I have seen hanging over it like a black cloud for half a century…"

"A meeting we accordingly had, and conned the paper over. I was delighted with its high tone and the flights of oratory with which it abounded, especially that concerning negro slavery, which, though I knew his Southern brethren would never suffer to pass in Congress, I certainly never would oppose. There were other expressions which I would not have inserted, if I had drawn it up, particularly that which called the King tyrant. I thought this too personal; for I never believed George to be a tyrant in disposition and in nature; I always believed him to be deceived by his courtiers on both sides of the Atlantic, and in his official capacity only, cruel. I thought the expression too passionate, and too much like scolding, for so grave and solemn a document; but as Franklin and Sherman were to inspect it afterwards, I thought it would not become me to strike it out. I consented to report it, and do not now remember that I made or suggested a single alteration. We reported it to the committee of five. It was read, and I do not remember that Franklin or Sherman criticized any thing. We were all in haste. Congress was impatient, and the instrument was reported, as I believe, in Jefferson’s handwriting, as he first drew it. Congress cut off about a quarter of it, as I expected they would; but they obliterated some of the best of it, and left all that was exceptionable, if any thing in it was. I have long wondered that the original draught has not been published. I suppose the reason is, the vehement philippic against negro slavery."

"The Europeans are all deeply tainted with prejudices, both ecclesiastical and temporal, which they can never get rid of. They are all infected with episcopal and presbyterian creeds, and confessions of faith. They all believe that great Principle which has produced this boundless universe, Newton’s universe and Herschell’s universe, came down to this little ball, to be spit upon by Jews. And until this awful blasphemy is got rid of, there never will be any liberal science in the world."

"As you justly observe, there is not an idea in it[The Declaration of Independence] but what had been hackneyed in Congress for two years before. The substance of it is contained in the declaration of rights and the violation of those rights in the Journals of Congress in 1774. Indeed, the essence of it is contained in a pamphlet, voted and printed by the town of Boston, before the first Congress met, composed by James Otis, as I suppose, in one of his lucid intervals, and pruned and polished by Samuel Adams."

"We think ourselves possessed, or, at least, we boast that we are so, of liberty of conscience on all subjects, and of the right of free inquiry and private judgment in all cases, and yet how far are we from these exalted privileges in fact! There exists, I believe, throughout the whole Christian world, a law which makes it blasphemy to deny or doubt the divine inspiration of all the books of the Old and New Testaments, from Genesis to Revelations. In most countries of Europe it is punished by fire at the stake, or the rack, or the wheel. In England itself it is punished by boring through the tongue with a poker. In America it is not better; even in our own Massachusetts, which I believe, upon the whole, is as temperate and moderate in religious zeal as most of the States, a law was made in the latter end of the last century, repealing the cruel punishments of the former laws, but substituting fine and imprisonment upon all those blasphemers upon any book of the Old Testament or New. Now, what free inquiry, when a writer must surely encounter the risk of fine or imprisonment for adducing any argument for investigating into the divine authority of those books? Who would run the risk of translating Dupuis? But I cannot enlarge upon this subject, though I have it much at heart. I think such laws a great embarrassment, great obstructions to the improvement of the human mind. Books that cannot bear examination, certainly ought not to be established as divine inspiration by penal laws. It is true, few persons appear desirous to put such laws in execution, and it is also true that some few persons are hardy enough to venture to depart from them. But as long as they continue in force as laws, the human mind must make an awkward and clumsy progress in its investigations. I wish they were repealed. The substance and essence of Christianity, as I understand it, is eternal and unchangeable, and will bear examination forever, but it has been mixed with extraneous ingredients, which I think will not bear examination, and they ought to be separated."

"No man who ever held the office of president would congratulate a friend on obtaining it. He will make one man ungrateful, and a hundred men his enemies, for every office he can bestow."

"My best wishes, in the joys, and festivities, and the solemn services of that day on which will be completed the fiftieth year from its birth, of the independence of the United States: a memorable epoch in the annals of the human race, destined in future history to form the brightest or the blackest page, according to the use or the abuse of those political institutions by which they shall, in time to come, be shaped by the human mind."

"Thomas — Jefferson — still surv —"

"Old minds are like old horses; you must exercise them if you wish to keep them in working order."

"What are the Qualifications of a Secretary of State? He ought to be a Man of universal Reading in Laws, Governments, History. Our whole terrestrial Universe ought to be summarily comprehended in his Mind."

"If we do not lay out ourselves in the service of mankind whom should we serve?"

"There are obviously two educations. One should teach us how to make a living and the other how to live."

"Think of your forefathers! Think of your posterity!"

"Genius is sorrow's child."

"As the government of the United States is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian Religion,—as it has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion or tranquility of Musselmen … it is declared … that no pretext arising from religious opinions shall ever produce an interruption of the harmony existing between the two countries."

"I have come to the conclusion that one useless man is called a disgrace; that two are called a law firm; and that three or more become a Congress!"

"The "divinity" of Jesus is made a convenient cover for absurdity. Nowhere in the Gospels do we find a precept for Creeds, Confessions, Oaths, Doctrines, and whole carloads of other foolish trumpery that we find in Christianity."

"We recognize no sovereign but God, and no king but Jesus!"

"God is an essence we know nothing of. Until this awful blasphemy is gotten rid of there will never be any liberal science in the world."

"The doctrine of the divinity of Jesus is made a convenient cover for absurdity."

"My friend, there is something very serious in this business. The Holy Ghost carries on the whole Christian system in this earth. Not a baptism, not a marriage, not a sacrament can be administered but by the Holy Ghost, Who is transmitted from age to age by laying the hands of the Bishop on the heads of candidates for the ministry. . . . There is no authority, civil or religious — there can be no legitimate government — but what is administered by this Holy Ghost. There can be no salvation without it — all without it is rebellion and perdition, or, in more orthodox words, damnation. . . Your prophecy, my dear friend, has not become history as yet. I have no resentment of animosity against the gentleman [Jefferson] and abhor the idea of blackening his character or transmitting him in odious colors to posterity. But I write with difficulty and am afraid of diffusing myself in too many correspondences. If I should receive a letter from him, however, I should not fail to acknowledge and answer it."

"The Holy Ghost carries on the whole Christian system in His truth. Not a baptism, not a marriage, not a Sacrament can be administered but by the Holy Ghost … There is no authority civil or religious: There can be no legitimate government but what is administered by the Holy Ghost. There can be no salvation without it. All without it is rebellion and perdition, or in more orthodox words damnation."

"A mob is still a mob, even if it's on your side."

"[T]he paradox of Adams's personality; he genuinely loved and had deep compassion for humanity but never learned to deal with individual human beings. To his immediate family, he was a warm, generously loving man; to outsiders, he appeared cold, aloof, conceited. As a youth he was driven by ambition. He was determined to be a man of substance and, if circumstances afforded the opportunity, a great man. Throughout his life he wrestled with his passions. From his mother he inherited his pugnacity, drive, ready temper, and broad mood swings. He frequently fell to black despair, fits of depression that were triggered usually by the onset of some illness, public criticism, or lack of recognition of his achievements. Some historians believe that he may have been manic-depressive. Somewhat paranoid, too, he was quick to see in his unpopularity a plot by others to discredit him and steal credit for themselves. A proper Puritan, he was shocked by the open sexuality of eighteenth-century France. At a dinner party in Bordeaux in 1778, a Madame de Texel, addressing Adams with innocent frankness, wondered aloud how Adam and Eve ever learned how to have sex, for no one else was around to explain the facts of life to them. Adams was thoroughly embarrassed, having never before heard a woman discuss such matters. He blushed but quickly regained his composure to explain with mock seriousness."

"Adams wished to warn his fellow Americans against all revolutionary manifestos that envisioned a fundamental break with the past and a fundamental transformation in human nature or society that supposedly produced a new age. All such utopian expectations were illusions, he believed, driven by what he called "ideology," the belief that imagined ideals, so real and seductive in theory, were capable of being implemented in the world. . . . His insistence that elites were unavoidable realities in all societies, however, made him vulnerable to the charge of endorsing aristocratic rule in America, when in fact he was attempting to suggest that the inevitable American elite must be controlled, its ambitions channeled toward public purposes. . . . Although misunderstood by many of his contemporaries, the realistic perspective that Adams proposed - and the skepticism toward utopian schemes he insisted upon - has achieved considerable support in the wake of the failed 20th-century attempts at social transformation in the communist bloc."

"I am persuaded, ... that Mr. Adams meant well for his country, was always an honest man, often a wise one, but sometimes and in some things, absolutely out of his senses."

"Truly, I believe we need a new Declaration of Independence. Is there no modern Jefferson or Adams?"

"He is vain, irritable, and a bad calculator of the force and probable effect of the motives which govern men. This is all the ill which can possibly be said of him. He is as disinterested as the Being who made him. He is profound in his views and accurate in his judgment, except where knowledge of the world is necessary to form a judgment. He is so amiable that I pronounce you will love him, if ever you become acquainted with him. He would be, as he was, a great man in Congress."

"What for me makes people like Teddy Roosevelt and Franklin Roosevelt and John Adams and George Washington and Dwight Eisenhower and Ronald Reagan such extraordinary leaders is that they had integrity through and through. What they were on the inside and what they said on the outside was harmonious. There are a lot of people like that. I think that if people try to live a very different personal life not consistent with the role they've assumed as a governor or senator or president, we lose something as a nation."

"He saw the whole of a subject at a single glance, and by a happy union of the powers of reasoning and persuasion often succeeded in carrying measures which were at first sight of an unpopular nature"

"In the revolution, Mrs. Adams said to her husband, “It seems to me that while you are struggling for your own liberty, you are not applying the principle universally” — the women and the slaves had been left out. The principle was not applied then, and has not been applied since."

"I can never join with my voice in the toast which I see in the papers attributed to one of our gallant naval heroes. I cannot ask of heaven success, even for my country, in a cause where she should be in the wrong. Fiat justitia, pereat coelum. My toast would be, may our country always be successful, but whether successful or otherwise, always right."

"All the public business in Congress now connects itself with intrigues, and there is great danger that the whole government will degenerate into a struggle of cabals."

"There is one principle which pervades all the institutions of this country, and which must always operate as an obstacle to the granting of favors to new comers. This is a land, not of privileges, but of equal rights. Privileges are granted by European sovereigns to particular classes of individuals, for purposes of general policy; but the general impression here is that privileges granted to one denomination of people, can very seldom be discriminated from erosions of the rights of others. Immigrants], coming here, are not to expect favors from the governments. They are to expect, if they choose to become citizens, equal rights with those of the natives of the country. They are to expect, if affluent, to possess the means of making their property productive, with moderation, and with safety;—if indigent, but industrious, honest and frugal, the means of obtaining easy and comfortable subsistence for themselves and their families. They come to a life of independence, but to a life of labor—and, if they cannot accommodate themselves to the character, moral, political, and physical, of this country, with all its compensating balances of good and evil, the Atlantic is always open to them, to return to the land of their nativity and their fathers."

"The discussion of this Missouri question has betrayed the secret of their souls. In the abstract they admit that slavery is an evil, they disclaim it, and cast it all upon the shoulder of…Great Britain. But when probed to the quick upon it, they show at the bottom of their souls pride and vainglory in their condition of masterdom. They look down upon the simplicity of a Yankee’s manners, because he has no habits of overbearing like theirs and cannot treat negroes like dogs. It is among the evils of slavery that it taints the very sources of moral principle. It establishes false estimates of virtue and vice: for what can be more false and heartless than this doctrine which makes the first and holiest rights of humanity to depend upon the color of the skin?"

"Slavery is the great and foul stain upon the North American Union... A dissolution, at least temporary, of the Union, as now constituted, would now be certainly necessary... The Union might then be reorganized on the fundamental principle of emancipation."

"Individual liberty is individual power, and as the power of a community is a mass compounded of individual powers, the nation which enjoys the most freedom must necessarily be in proportion to its numbers the most powerful nation."

"The United States of America and the people of every State of which they are composed are each of them sovereign powers. The legislative authority of the whole is exercised by Congress under authority granted them in the common Constitution. The legislative power of each State is exercised by assemblies deriving their authority from the constitution of the State. Each is sovereign within its own province. The distribution of power between them presupposes that these authorities will move in harmony with each other. The members of the State and General Governments are all under oath to support both, and allegiance is due to the one and to the other. The case of a conflict between these two powers has not been supposed, nor has any provision been made for it in our institutions; as a virtuous nation of ancient times existed more than five centuries without a law for the punishment of patricide."

"This house will bear witness to his piety; this town, his birthplace, to his munificence; history to his patriotism; posterity to the depth and compass of his mind."

"In the seventh century of the Christian era, a wandering Arab of the lineage of Hagar, the Egyptian, combining the powers of transcendent genius, with the preternatural energy of a fanatic, and the fraudulent spirit of an impostor, proclaimed himself as a messenger from Heaven, and spread desolation and delusion over an extensive portion of the earth. Adopting from the sublime conception of the Mosaic law, the doctrine of one omnipotent God; he connected indissolubly with it, the audacious falsehood, that he was himself his prophet and apostle. Adopting from the new Revelation of Jesus, the faith and hope of immortal life, and of future retribution, he humbled it to the dust by adapting all the rewards and sanctions of his religion to the gratification of the sexual passion. He poisoned the sources of human felicity at the fountain, by degrading the condition of the female sex, and the allowance of polygamy; and he declared undistinguishing and exterminating war, as a part of his religion, against all the rest of mankind. THE ESSENCE OF HIS DOCTRINE WAS VIOLENCE AND LUST : TO EXALT THE BRUTAL OVER THE SPIRITUAL PART OF HUMAN NATURE. Between these two religions, thus contrasted in their characters, a war of twelve hundred years has already raged. That war is yet flagrant; nor can it cease but by the extinction of that imposture, which has been permitted by Providence to prolong the degeneracy of man. While the merciless and dissolute dogmas of the false prophet shall furnish motives to human action, there can never be peace upon earth, and good will towards men. The hand of Ishmael will be against every man, and every man's hand against him."

"The highest, the transcendent glory of the American Revolution was this — it connected, in one indissoluble bond, the principles of civil government with the precepts of Christianity."

"Why is it that, next to the birth day of the Saviour of the World, your most joyous and most venerated festival returns on this day? … Is it not that, in the chain of human events, the birthday of the nation is indissolubly linked with the birth-day of the Saviour? That it forms a leading event in the progress of the gospel dispensation? Is it not that the Declaration of Independence first organized the social compact on the foundation of the Redeemer’s mission upon earth? That it laid the corner stone of human government upon the first precepts of Christianity, and gave to the world the first irrevocable pledge of the fulfilment of the prophecies, announced directly from Heaven at the birth of the Saviour and predicted by the greatest of the Hebrew prophets six hundred years before?"

"In charity to all mankind, bearing no malice or ill will to any human being, and even compassionating those who hold in bondage their fellow men, not knowing what they do."

"30th [June 1841]. Morning visit from John Ross, chief of the Cherokee Nation, with Vann and Benn, two others of the delegation. Ross had written to request an interview with me for them on my appointment as Chairman of the Committee on Indian Affairs. I was excused from that service at my own request, from a full conviction that its only result would be to keep a perpetual harrow upon my feelings, with a total impotence to render any useful service. The policy, from Washington to myself, of all the Presidents of the United States had been justice and kindness to the Indian tribes—to civilize and preserve them. With the Creeks and Cherokees it had been eminently successful. Its success was their misfortune. The States within whose borders their settlements were took the alarm, broke down all the treaties which had pledged the faith of the nation. Georgia extended her jurisdiction over them, took possession of their lands, houses, cattle, furniture, negroes, and drove them out from their own dwellings. All the Southern States supported Georgia in this utter prostration of faith and justice; and Andrew Jackson, by the simultaneous operation of fraudulent treaties and brutal force, consummated the work. The Florida War is one of the fruits of this policy, the conduct of which exhibits one (un)interrupted scene of the most profligate corruption. All resistance against this abomination is vain. It is among the heinous sins of this nation, for which I believe God will one day bring them to judgement—but as His own time and by His own means."

"My wants are many, and, if told, Would muster many a score; And were each wish a mint of gold, I still would want for more."

"I want the seals of power and place, The ensigns of command, Charged by the people's unbought grace, To rule my native land. Nor crown, nor scepter would I ask But from my country's will, By day, by night, to ply the task Her cup of bliss to fill."

"The Constitution of the United States recognizes the slaves, held within some of the States of the Union, only in their capacity of persons — persons held to labor or service in a State under the laws thereof — persons constituting elements of representation in the popular branch of the National Legislature — persons, the migration or importation of whom should not be prohibited by Congress prior to the year 1808. The Constitution no where recognizes them as property. The words slave and slavery are studiously excluded from the Constitution. Circumlocutions are the fig-leaves under which these parts of the body politic are decently concealed. Slaves, therefore, in the Constitution of the United States are recognized only as persons, enjoying rights and held to the performance of duties."

"We know the redemption must come. The time and the manner of its coming we know not: It may come in peace, or it may come in blood; but whether in peace or in blood, LET IT COME."

"The duties of man consist in alternate action and meditation, mutually aiding and relieving each other; and both, directed with undeviating aim, to the progressive improvement of himself and his fellow creatures. Heaven has given him in charge, to promote the happiness and well-being of himself, his wife, his children, his kindred, his neighbors, his fellow citizens, his country, and his kind; and the great problem of legislation is, so to organize the civil government of a community, that this gradation of duties, may be made to harmonize in all its parts — that in the operation of human institutions upon social action, self-love and social may be made the same."

"To furnish the means of acquiring knowledge is … the greatest benefit that can be conferred upon mankind. It prolongs life itself and enlarges the sphere of existence."

"This hand, to tyrants ever sworn the foe, For Freedom only deals the deadly blow; Then sheathes in calm repose the vengeful blade, For gentle peace in Freedom’s hallowed shade."

"The conflict between the principle of liberty and the fact of slavery is coming gradually to an issue. Slavery has now the power, and falls into convulsions at the approach of freedom. That the fall of slavery is predetermined in the counsels of Omnipotence I cannot doubt; it is a part of the great moral improvement in the condition of man, attested by all the records of history. But the conflict will be terrible, and the progress of improvement perhaps retrograde before its final progress to consummation."

"Who but shall learn that freedom is the prize Man still is bound to rescue or maintain; That nature's God commands the slave to rise, And on the oppressor's head to break the chain. Roll, years of promise, rapidly roll round, Till not a slave shall on this earth be found."

"I told him that I thought it was law logic — an artificial system of reasoning, exclusively used in Courts of justice, but good for nothing anywhere else."

"All men profess honesty as long as they can. To believe all men honest would be folly. To believe none so is something worse."

"This is the last of Earth! I am content."

"La molesse est doce, et sa suite est cruelle."

"Among the sentiments of most powerful operation upon the human heart, and most highly honorable to the human character, are those of veneration for our forefathers, and of love for our posterity. They form the connecting links between the selfish and the social passions. By the fundamental principle of Christianity, the happiness of the individual is Later-woven, by innumerable and imperceptible ties, with that of his contemporaries: by the power of filial reverence and parental affection, individual existence is extended beyond the limits of individual life, and the happiness of every age is chained in mutual dependence upon that of every other."

"Respect for his ancestors excites, in the breast of man, interest in their history, attachment to their characters, concern for their errors, involuntary pride in their virtues. Love for his posterity spurs him to exertion for their support, stimulates him to virtue for their example, and fills him with the tenderest solicitude for their welfare. Man, therefore, was not made for himself alone. No; he was made for his country, by the obligations of the social compact: he was made for his species, by the Christian duties of universal charity: he was made for all ages past, by the sentiment of reverence for his forefathers; and he was made for all future times, by the impulse of affection for his progeny. Under the influence of these principles, "Existence sees him spurn her bounded reign." They redeem his nature from the subjection of time and space: he is no longer a "puny insect shivering at a breeze;" he is the glory of creation, formed to occupy all time and all extent: bounded, during his residence upon earth, only by the boundaries of the world, and destined to life and immortality in brighter regions, when the fabric of nature itself shall dissolve and perish."

"The barbarian chieftain, who defended his country against the Roman invasion, driven to the remotest extremity of Britain, and stimulating his followers to battle, by all that has power of persuasion upon the human heart, concludes his exhortation by an appeal to these irresistible feelings — "Think of your forefathers and of your posterity.""

"Courage and perseverance have a magical talisman, before which difficulties disappear and obstacles vanish into air. These qualities have ever been displayed in their mightiest perfection, as attendants in the retinue of strong passions."

"Religious discord has lost her sting; the cumbrous weapons of theological warfare are antiquated: the field of politics supplies the alchymists of our times with materials of more fatal explosion, and the butchers of mankind no longer travel to another world for instruments of cruelty and destruction. Our age is too enlightened to contend upon topics, which concern only the interests of eternity; and men who hold in proper contempt all controversies about trifles, except such as inflame their own passions, have made it a common-place censure against your ancestors, that their zeal was enkindled by subjects of trivial importance; and that however aggrieved by the intolerance of others, they were alike intolerant themselves. Against these objections, your candid judgment will not require an unqualified justification; but your respect and gratitude for the founders of the State may boldly claim an ample apology. The original grounds of their separation from the church of England, were not objects of a magnitude to dissolve the bonds of communion; much less those of charity, between Christian brethren of the same essential principles."

"And now, friends and countrymen, if the wise and learned philosophers of the elder world, the first observers of nutation and aberration, the discoverers of maddening ether and invisible planets, the inventors of Congreve rockets and shrapnel shells, should find their hearts disposed to enquire what has America done for the benefit of mankind? Let our answer be this: America, with the same voice which spoke herself into existence as a nation, proclaimed to mankind the inextinguishable rights of human nature, and the only lawful foundations of government."

"America, in the assembly of nations, since her admission among them, has invariably, though often fruitlessly, held forth to them the hand of honest friendship, of equal freedom, of generous reciprocity. She has uniformly spoken among them, though often to heedless and often to disdainful ears, the language of equal liberty, of equal justice, and of equal rights. She has, in the lapse of nearly half a century, without a single exception, respected the independence of other nations while asserting and maintaining her own. She has abstained from interference in the concerns of others, even when conflict has been for principles to which she clings, as to the last vital drop that visits the heart. She has seen that probably for centuries to come, all the contests of that Aceldama the European world, will be contests of inveterate power, and emerging right. Wherever the standard of freedom and Independence has been or shall be unfurled, there will her heart, her benedictions and her prayers be. But she goes not abroad, in search of monsters to destroy. She is the well-wisher to the freedom and independence of all. She is the champion and vindicator only of her own. She will commend the general cause by the countenance of her voice, and the benignant sympathy of her example. She well knows that by once enlisting under other banners than her own, were they even the banners of foreign independence, she would involve herself beyond the power of extrication, in all the wars of interest and intrigue, of individual avarice, envy, and ambition, which assume the colors and usurp the standard of freedom. The fundamental maxims of her policy would insensibly change from liberty to force. The frontlet on her brows would no longer beam with the ineffable splendor of freedom and independence; but in its stead would soon be substituted an imperial diadem, flashing in false and tarnished lustre the murky radiance of dominion and power. She might become the dictatress of the world; she would be no longer the ruler of her own spirit. . . . Her glory is not dominion, but liberty. Her march is the march of the mind. She has a spear and a shield: but the motto upon her shield is, Freedom, Independence, Peace. This has been her Declaration: this has been, as far as her necessary intercourse with the rest of mankind would permit, her practice."

"Pronounce him one of the first men of his age, and you have yet not done him justice. Try him by that test to which he sought in vain to stimulate the vulgar and selfish spirit of Napoleon; class him among the men who, to compare and seat themselves, must take in the compass of all ages; turn back your eyes upon the records of time; summon from the creation of the world to this day the mighty dead of every age and every clime — and where, among the race of merely mortal men, shall one be found, who, as the benefactor of his kind, shall claim to take precedence of Lafayette?"

"There have doubtless been, in all ages, men, whose discoveries or inventions, in the world of matter or of mind, have opened new avenues to the dominion of man over the material creation; have increased his means or his faculties of enjoyment; have raised him in nearer approximation to that higher and happier condition, the object of his hopes and aspirations in his present state of existence. Lafayette discovered no new principle of politics or of morals. He invented nothing in science. He disclosed no new phenomenon in the laws of nature. Born and educated in the highest order of feudal Nobility, under the most absolute Monarchy of Europe, in possession of an affluent fortune, and master of himself and of all his capabilities at the moment of attaining manhood, the principle of republican justice and of social equality took possession of his heart and mind, as if by inspiration from above. He devoted himself, his life, his fortune, his hereditary honors, his towering ambition, his splendid hopes, all to the cause of liberty. He came to another hemisphere to defend her. He became one of the most effective champions of our Independence; but, that once achieved, he returned to his own country, and thenceforward took no part in the controversies which have divided us. In the events of our Revolution, and in the forms of policy which we have adopted for the establishment and perpetuation of our freedom, Lafayette found the most perfect form of government. He wished to add nothing to it."

"When the principle of hereditary dominion shall be extinguished in all the institutions of France; when government shall no longer be considered as property transmissible from sire to son, but as a trust committed for a limited time, and then to return to the people whence it came; as a burdensome duty to be discharged, and not as a reward to be abused; when a claim, any claim, to political power by inheritance shall, in the estimation of the whole French people, be held as it now is by the whole people of the North American Union — then will be the time for contemplating the character of Lafayette, not merely in the events of his life, but in the full development of his intellectual conceptions, of his fervent aspirations, of the labors and perils and sacrifices of his long and eventful career upon earth; and thenceforward, till the hour when the trump of the Archangel shall sound to announce that Time shall be no more, the name of Lafayette shall stand enrolled upon the annals of our race, high on the list of the pure and disinterested benefactors of mankind."

"The first steps of the slaveholder to justify by argument the peculiar instutitions is to deny the self-evident truths of the Declaration of Independence. He denies that all men are created equal. He denies that he has inalienable rights."

"The precept of the Koran is, perpetual war against all who deny, that Mahomet is the prophet of God. The vanquished may purchase their lives, by the payment of tribute; the victorious may be appeased by a false and delusive promise of peace; and the faithful follower of the prophet, may submit to the imperious necessities of defeat: but the command to propagate the Moslem creed by the sword is always obligatory, when it can be made effective. The commands of the prophet may be performed alike, by fraud, or by force."

"Posterity: you will never know how much it has cost my generation to preserve your freedom. I hope you will make good use of it."

"Opposition to the slaveholding interests was led by the Massachusetts representative and former president of the United States, John Quincy Adams. He not only denounced slavery, but advanced progressive views on the right of women to engage in political activity."

"John Quincy Adams, born in 1767, was the last surviving American leader with strong ties to America’s founding: As a young diplomat he had been praised and respected by Washington, Jefferson, and Madison; under President Monroe he had been one of America’s greatest secretaries of state (perhaps the greatest). Though party politics had undermined the goals of his own presidency, as an aging congressman he led the ultimately successful nine-year battle against Southerners to defeat the House of Representatives’ “gag rule” against the reception of antislavery petitions. In the midst of this battle, Adams served as the key legal adviser to Roger Sherman Baldwin, before becoming the senior defense attorney in the Amistad trial before the U.S. Supreme Court. At ages seventy-three and seventy-four, as Adams fought slavery on two fronts, he exemplified the noblest meaning of the Revolutionary heritage. As he told William Jay, the abolitionist son of the first chief justice, John Jay, the blacks had “vindicated their own right to liberty” by “executing the justice of Heaven” upon a “pirate murderer, their tyrant and oppressor.” Adams’s view that the Africans had freed themselves by “self-emancipation” won surprising support from the Northern press."

"Because he was both introspective and uncommonly candid in admitting his own shortcomings, Adams remains the best source for a description of his personality. "I am a man of reserved, cold, austere and forbidding manners," he confided to his diary, "my political adversaries say, a gloomy misanthropist, and my personal enemies, an unsocial savage. With a knowledge of the actual defect in my character, I have not the pliability to reform it." In a letter to his wife he admitted, "I never was and never shall be what is commonly termed a popular man, being as little qualified by nature, education, or habit for the arts of a courtier as I am desirous of being courted by others... I am certainly not intentionally repulsive in my manners and deportment, and in my public station I never made myself inaccessible to any human being. But I have no powers of fascination; none of the honey which the profligate proverb says is the true fly-catcher. Ironically, a man famous for his cold demeanor was the most successful American diplomat of his time. In the ticklist art of negotiation, Adams assiduously checked his temper and performed the diplomatic amenities."

"You could walk over to Sen. (Scott) Brown's desk, for example, and find that in the chair before him was Sen. Edward Kennedy, before him was John F. Kennedy, before him Charles Sumner, Daniel Webster and John Quincy Adams."

"John Quincy Adams may have been gratified by the result, but he, too, was disturbed by the way it had been achieved, through chicanery and cheap political slogans and unchecked hostility between the parties. He considered it "a revolution in the habits and manners of the people," and being an Adams, he worried about what it portended for the future. "Their manifest destiny is to civil war," he concluded glumly. Some -those who won- saw it as the vindication of democracy. But the tawdriness of this campaign, with its false claims and easy sound bites, signaled what Henry Adams would later call the degradation of the democratic dogma. Out on the Illinois prairie, a young friend of Lincoln's, Albert T. Bledsoe, worried that "pandemonium had been let loose upon earth.""

"Perhaps the place to start looking for a credibility gap is not in the offices of the Government in Washington but in the studios of the networks in New York!"

"A spirit of national masochism prevails, encouraged by an effete corps of impudent snobs who characterize themselves as intellectuals."

"In the United States today, we have more than our share of the nattering nabobs of negativism."

"This is the criminal left that belongs not in a dormitory, but in a penitentiary. The criminal left is not a problem to be solved by the Department of Philosophy or the Department of English—it is a problem for the Department of Justice…. Black or white, the criminal left is interested in power. It is not interested in promoting the renewal and reforms that make democracy work; it is interested in promoting those collisions and conflict that tear democracy apart."

"Your highness is already familiar with the unrelenting Zionist efforts to destroy me."

"Zionists in the United States knew that I would never agree to the continuance of the unfair and disastrous favoring of Israel and they had to get me out of office there so that I would not succeed Nixon."

"The Zionists have orchestrated a well-organized attack on me ... to bleed me of my resources to continue my effort to inform the American people of their control of the media and other influential sectors of American society"

"It seems that Spiro Agnew was speaking tonight at a fund-raising dinner in Maryland, where he said, "Republicans should work for adoption of environmental programs, welfare and revenue-sharing and most importantly, we have to keep Bella Abzug from showing up in Congress in hot pants." The UPI reporter asked me to comment. "I have no intention of wearing hot pants in Congress," I said, "because they are not my style-any more than Mr. Agnew is. Besides, before long-and at least by 1972-I expect hot pants will disappear from the national scene, along with Mr. Agnew and Mr. Nixon"...Everybody's kidding me about Agnew's remark, which I guess is funny in a stupid way. I really can't get angry. Some guys would like to dismiss me with silly comments about my hats or my four-letter words or my figure. Maybe they think that by dwelling on aspects of my flamboyant character...., they can divert attention from the things I really dwell on such as child care, repeal of the draft and an end to the war."

"Boy! They're (MAD Magazine) really sockin' it to that Spiro Agnew guy again, he must work there or something."

"As a veteran, and one who feels this anger, I’d like to talk about it. We’re angry because we feel we have been used in the worst fashion by the Administration of this country. In 1970 at West Point, Vice President Agnew said: "Some glamorize the criminal misfits of society while our best men die in Asian rice paddies to preserve the freedoms which those misfits abuse." And this was used as a rallying point for our effort in Vietnam. But for us, his boys in Asia whom the country was supposed to support, his statement is a terrible distortion from which we can only draw a very deep sense of revulsion; and hence the anger of some of the men who are here in Washington today."

"Given Rockefeller's popularity, Nixon-Rockefeller would have been a dream ticket. Even if Rockefeller wouldn't accept the number-two spot, New York major John Lindsay, a handsome, well-liked liberal who had helped right the Kerner Commission report on racial violence, had made it clear that he was eager to run as Nixon's vice president. Conservative Nixon with liberal Lindsay would have brought to the Republican Party the full spectrum of American politics. Instead Nixon turned to the Right, picking a little-known and not much loved archconservative, with views, especially on race and law and order, that were so reactionary that to many he seemed an outright bigot."

"None of this, of course, was as damaging to the Greek-American political self-image as Spiro Agnew's resignation from the vice presidency in 1973 amid charges of illegal financial dealings while in office in Maryland. Although Agnew's ties to the Greek community were tenuous at best, he did represent the cultural conservatism of most Greek Americans. Agnew's fall from grace was a particular shame to the Greek-American community."

"Sing a song of Spiro Agnew and all the things he has done. (No other lyrics)"

"" You know Colson had that sign on the wall in his office saying ONCE YOU HAVE THEM BY THE BALLS, THEIR HEARTS AND MINDS WILL FOLLOW.", a quote by Teddy Roosevelt"

"The Fourth Amendment and the personal rights it secures have a long history. At the very core stands the right of a man to retreat into his own home and there be free from unreasonable governmental intrusion."

"I think that the court has misapplied a great constitutional principle. I cannot see how 'official religion' is established by letting those who want to say a prayer say it. On the contrary, I think that to deny the wish of these school children to join in reciting this prayer is to deny them the opportunity of sharing in the spiritual heritage of the nation."

"I shall not today attempt further to define the kinds of material I understand to be embraced within that shorthand description [hard-core pornography]; and perhaps I could never succeed in intelligibly doing so. But I know it when I see it, and the motion picture involved in this case is not that."

"Censorship reflects a society's lack of confidence in itself. It is a hallmark of an authoritarian regime."

"In the governmental structure created by our Constitution, the Executive is endowed with enormous power in the two related areas of national defense and international relations. This power, largely unchecked by the Legislative [1] and Judicial [2] branches, has been pressed to the very hilt since the advent of the nuclear missile age. For better or for worse, the simple fact is that a President of the United States possesses vastly greater constitutional independence in these two vital areas of power than does, say, a prime minister of a country with a parliamentary form of government. In the absence of the governmental checks and balances present in other areas of our national life, the only effective restraint upon executive policy and power in the areas of national defense and international affairs may lie in an enlightened citizenry — in an informed and critical public opinion which alone can here protect the values of democratic government. For this reason, it is perhaps here that a press that is alert, aware, and free most vitally serves the basic purpose of the First Amendment. For, without an informed and free press, there cannot be an enlightened people."

"Several decisions of this Court make clear that freedom of personal choice in matters of marriage and family life is one of the liberties protected by the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. . . . That right necessarily includes the right of a woman to decide whether or not to terminate her pregnancy."

"The Executive must have the largely unshared duty to determine and preserve the degree of internal security necessary to exercise that power successfully. It is an awesome responsibility requiring judgment and wisdom of a high order. A very first principle of that wisdom would be an insistence upon avoiding secrecy for its own sake. For when everything is classified, then nothing is classified and the system becomes one to be disregarded by the cynical or the careless and to be manipulated by those intent on self-protection or self-promotion."

"But just because you have a right to do something doesn’t mean it’s right to do it."

"What the insurance companies have done is to reverse the business so that the public at large insures the insurance companies."

"Corporations do not make up this country, people do."

"At last, we are defined by how we use our power. Power often stands in the way of learning. Wisdom revealed by simple lessons is hard to see for leaders wearing the blinders of power. But we, too, have choices. We can relieve much of the suffering in this world and promote the potential of the species, or we can, following the example of Saddam, horde our power and exercise it for our own aggrandizement."

"Everyone wants to argue. Everyone does. Everyone needs to."

"While birds can fly, only humans can argue. Argument is the affirmation of our being. It is the principal instrument of human intercourse. Without argument the species would perish. As a subtle suggestion, it is the means by which we aid another. As a warning, it steers us from danger. As exposition, it teaches. As an expression of creativity, it is the gift of ourselves. As a protest, it struggles for justice. As a reasoned dialogue, it resolves disputes. As an assertion of self, it engenders respect. As an entreaty of love, it expresses our devotion. As a plea, it generates mercy. As charismatic oration it moves multitudes and changes history. We must argue — to help, to warn, to lead, to love, to create, to learn, to enjoy justice — to be."

"Prejudice locks the mind. Nothing can enter. Nothing true can escape."

"Those whose minds are jammed with prejudice have room for little else. Growth is dead. Learning is gridlocked. They may understand our logic, but logic makes no difference. The word root of prejudice, praejudicium, implies prejudgment. People are prejudiced both for and against a philosophy, a religion, a belief system. They are prejudiced for or against a political party, the make of an automobile, a race, a person — you name it."

"Our prejudices — we all have them — are part of our personality structure. The problem is that our prejudices may lie lurking at the bottom of the subterranean mind where the slowly ooze up and color our thinking without our knowing it."

"When you are faced with prejudice, logic and justice are impotent. Still, we may have an obligation to argue directly into the face of the prejudice, even though there is no chance to win."

"The stain of prejudice is often indelible."

"I would rather have a mind opened by wonder than one closed by belief."

"Words that do not create images should be discarded. Words that have no intrinsic emotional or visual content ought to be avoided. Words that are directed to the sterile intellectual head-place should be abandoned. Use simple words, words that create pictures and action and that generate feeling."

"If I am real, if I am speaking from the heart zone, the right words will come. They will come a spoonful at a time, in the proper mixture."

"There are no rules that say lawyers cannot write or speak from their heart. Passion has never been formally outlawed, although it is a little-known experience among most lawyers and nearly all academicians."

"The power argument is an argument so powerful in its structure, so compelling in its delivery that when we assume the power stance the argument cannot be defeated. The power argument need not fill the air with noise. It need not create pandemonium. It need not destroy the opponent. It can be quiet. Gentle. It can embrace love, not anger, understanding, not hate."

"When we come before the school board, most often we do not face those interested in the education of our children, but those interested in the maintenance of power. These contests are war. Any other paradigm is an illusion. It is not a mere contest, like athletes plunging down the hill on skis for the fastest time. It is not a dance in which the most graceful will be rewarded with a medal. This is war. Once we understand that the struggle is war, we can wage war and win. The key to winning any war is to control the war. This does not mean I seek to control my opponent."

"To freely bloom — that is my definition of success. The question then is, How does arguing with our children advance our goal that our children freely bloom."

"The major functions of the government are, as in the communist nations, operated by deeply embedded, hopelessly entangled bureaus where nothing is accomplished because the function of the bureau is to intercept every living idea and smother it."

"The function of the law is not to provide justice or to preserve freedom. The function of the law is to keep those who hold power, in power."

"Today the courts are choked with lawsuits brought by people against the New King. When they sue each other as a result of an automobile accident they in fact sue the King, for both parties are likely insured. ... Steadily the courts have become clearing-houses for the insurance industry."

"My intent is to tell the truth as I know it, realizing that what is true for me may be blasphemy for others."

"The people of a nation are enslaved when, together, they are helpless to institute effective change, when the people serve the government more than the government serves them."

"Today the insatiable quest for profit promotes the new slavery. In bewildering ways, the new is more pernicious than the old, for the New American Slave is told he is free, and he clings to that myth as if his life depended upon it, a suspicion that cannot be totally ignored."

"As we drive down the freeways, we see the new cars, but not the massive new-car loans that enslave their drivers to the banks."

"When any system has for its goal the advancement of the system over the betterment of its individual members, such a system is embedded in slavery."

"Although the ideal of free enterprise could, indeed, lend itself to the uplifting of the human condition, when it is practiced for profit alone, it becomes but a license for the powerful to further enslave the weak."

"To accept capitalism and Free Enterprise as articles of faith without agreeing that we must be free to consider whether what is offered is free and freeing is itself enslavement."

"Each of us has been endowed with the perfect power to be free. Slavery is a state of mind that fails to acknowledge the slave's own power."

"The gift of self cannot be given to us. It is an incomparable gift that has already been given. We have possessed it from the beginning."

"Teach the child to respect that which is not respectable and you teach the child the first requirement of slavery: submission to unjust authority. Children are persons. They are small persons whose perfect souls have not yet been ground through the meat grinder of slavery."

"I say, embrace fear as a friend. It is nature's gift to us. It is the best weapon for liberty. We do not give our permission to be enslaved by acknowledging its presence. Instead, it permits us to escape into the forest if we must. But it does not prevent the boy from rising off the ground one more time to defeat the bully. Fear is presented to us as a signal of danger. It permits us to escape or to fight with power beyond our ability."

"There are only two races (and they are not distinguished by color): those who are free and those who are not."

"To bargain freedom for security is the devil's bargain. Having made the bargain, one enjoys neither freedom nor security."

"The new and most powerful union of all will be a union of one — one man, one woman, one worker with special skills, an inquiring mind, and an independent attitude, his creativity intact, his love of life blooming. The union of one will be peopled by one man or one woman who is alive. Such a person is always sought by the intelligent manager."

"Money in doses disproportionate to our needs enslaves."

"No artist's masterpiece can match a mother's creation of a successful child, one who has been freed to explore and to grow. ... Success is measured not only by who we are, but by what gifts we give. As the old chief said, "The gift is not complete until it is given again." Ah, the mother whose gift to the world is a person!"

"The less of one's life one must exchange for money, the more freedom one may enjoy."

"How much of our lives could we buy back if we cherished our lives instead of our trinkets?"

"We cannot, as a people, remain mute and free."

"Nearly every day on the television set the hero cop breaks into the bad guy’s house and beats a confession out of him and we cheer on the cop. Propaganda smears our clear vision. It causes us to accept the diminishment of our constitutional protections as something to be lauded — after all, the cop was protecting us."

"I dream of a time when the people will retake their airways and use them to achieve a voice to rediscover democracy, and to see the divine potential of man."

"The Internet has become the phenomenon of the new century. It has become the voice of the people in the first genuine experiment in democracy yet conducted in America. It stands ready to serve every facet, every faction. It creates neighbors where once we were foreigners. It carries our individual voices to new communities formed through the magic of electronics. The electronic village has been born, and the village voice, via the internet is being heard."

"A new fascism promises security from the terror of crime. All that is required is that we take away the criminals’ rights – which, of course, are our own. Out of our desperation and fear we begin to feel a sense of security from the new totalitarian state."

"Power can win the body count but it cannot win this war. Because the enemy is not human. This is a war against a malicious spirit. Only fools attempt to defeat a spirit with guns and rockets and bombs."

"The goal of a free nation is to reveal by example the enlightened possibilities of the human race, not to wield its power of destruction and death over the helpless, the poor, the starving and the war torn masses. The goal of a free nation must be no different outside its borders than within them. In America we do not massacre whole towns because they may be the chosen domicile of a criminal or a conspiracy of criminals. Instead we carefully root out the felons and bring them to justice. In the same way, the goal of a free nation must be to first view all people as members of the human race, and, as such, to insist that they possess fundamental human rights. They are, as we, citizens of the world. The rule of law shows us the way."

"There are not infrequent times when a bottle of wine, a good dinner, a girl of some trivial sort can fill the hour for me."

"Get down, you fool!"

"But as precedents survive like the clavicle in the cat, long after the use they once served is at an end, and the reason for them has been forgotten, the result of following them must often be failure and confusion from the merely logical point of view."

"It is the merit of the common law that it decides the case first and determines the principle afterwards."

"The life of the law has not been logic; it has been experience... The law embodies the story of a nation's development through many centuries, and it cannot be dealt with as if it contained only the axioms and corollaries of a book of mathematics."

"The degree of civilization which a people has reached, no doubt, is marked by their anxiety to do as they would be done by."

"State interference is an evil, where it cannot be shown to be a good."

"It is now the moment when by common consent we pause to become conscious of our national life and to rejoice in it, to recall what our country has done for each of us, and to ask ourselves what we can do for the country in return."

"I think that, as life is action and passion, it is required of a man that he should share the passion and action of his time at peril of being judged not to have lived."

"We know that, if the armies of our war did anything worth remembering, the credit belongs not mainly to the individuals who did it, but to average human nature. We also know very well that we cannot live in associations with the past alone, and we admit that, if we would be worthy of the past, we must find new fields for action or thought, and make for ourselves new careers. But, nevertheless, the generation that carried on the war has been set apart by its experience. Through our great good fortune, in our youth our hearts were touched with fire. It was given to us to learn at the outset that life is a profound and passionate thing. While we are permitted to scorn nothing but indifference, and do not pretend to undervalue the worldly rewards of ambition, we have seen with our own eyes, beyond and above the gold fields, the snowy heights of honor, and it is for us to bear the report to those who come after us."

"As for us, our days of combat are over. Our swords are rust. Our guns will thunder no more. The vultures that once wheeled over our heads must be buried with their prey. Whatever of glory must be won in the council or the closet, never again in the field. I do not repine. We have shared the incommunicable experience of war; we have felt, we still feel, the passion of life to its top."

"The law, so far as it depends on learning, is indeed, as it has been called, the government of the living by the dead. To a very considerable extent no doubt it is inevitable that the living should be so governed. The past gives us our vocabulary and fixes the limits of our imagination; we cannot get away from it. There is, too, a peculiar logical pleasure in making manifest the continuity between what we are doing and what has been done before. But the present has a right to govern itself so far as it can; and it ought always to be remembered that historic continuity with the past is not a duty, it is only a necessity."

"I always say you can get your tragedy of any desired length in England, from thirty seconds to a lifetime. I had one adorable one of twenty-nine minutes by the watch. At the end of that time I started for my train. Woman I'd had a glimpse of in London — walk. She sat on a style, I below her, gazing into her eyes — then, "remember this lane," "while memory holds its seat, etc." "Adieu." And I still do and ever shall remember her, and I rather think she does me a little bit. What imbecilities for an old fellow to be talking. But if one knows his place and makes way for younger men when he isn't sure, it is better perhaps not quite to abandon interest in the sports of life."

"Free competition is worth more to society than it costs."

"One of the eternal conflicts out of which life is made up is that between the effort of every man to get the most he can for his services, and that of society, disguised under the name of capital, to get his services for the least possible return."

"Most of the things we do, we do for no better reason than that our fathers have done them or our neighbors do them, and the same is true of a larger part than what we suspect of what we think."

"The aim of the law is not to punish sins, but is to prevent certain external results."

"Certainty generally is illusion, and repose is not the destiny of man."

"The advice of the elders to young men is very apt to be as unreal as a list of the hundred best books."

"For the rational study of the law the blackletter man may be the man of the present, but the man of the future is the man of statistics and the master of economics."

"If you want to know the law and nothing else, you must look at it as a bad man, who cares only for the material consequences which such knowledge enables him to predict, not as a good one, who finds his reasons for conduct, whether inside the law or outside of it, in the vaguer sanctions of conscience."

"When we study law we are not studying a mystery but a well-known profession. We are studying what we shall want in order to appear before judges, or to advise people in such a way as to keep them out of court. The reason why it is a profession, why people will pay lawyers to argue for them or to advise them, is that in societies like ours the command of the public force is intrusted to the judges in certain cases, and the whole power of the state will be put forth, if necessary, to carry out their judgments and decrees. People want to know under what circumstances and how far they will run the risk of coming against what is so much stronger than themselves, and hence it becomes a business to find out when this danger is to be feared. The object of our study, then, is prediction, the prediction of the incidence of the public force through the instrumentality of the courts."

"The law is the witness and external deposit of our moral life. Its history is the history of the moral development of the race."

"How odious a virtue the much praised simplicity. The only simplicity for which I would give a straw is that which is on the other side of the complex — not that which never has divined it."

"One has to try to strike the jugular and let the rest go."

"Nature has but one judgment on wrong conduct — if you can call that a judgment which seemingly has no reference to conduct as such — the judgment of death."

"Taxes are the price we pay for a civilized society."

"Great cases like hard cases make bad law. For great cases are called great, not by reason of their importance in shaping the law of the future, but because of some accident of immediate overwhelming interest which appeals to the feelings and distorts the judgement."

"Constitutions are intended to preserve practical and substantial rights, not to maintain theories."

"I can't help preferring champagne to ditch water — I doubt if the universe does."

"The great act of faith is when a man decides that he is not God."

"Philosophy may have gained by the attempts in recent years to look through the fiction to the fact and to generalize corporations, partnerships, and other groups into a single conception. But to generalize is to omit, and, in this instance, to omit one characteristic of the complete corporation, as called into being under modern statutes, that is most important in business and law."

"The major premise of the conclusion expressed in a statute, the change of policy that induces the enactment, may not be set out in terms, but it is not an adequate discharge of duty for courts to say: We see what you are driving at, but you have not said it, and therefore we shall go on as before."

"Even a dog distinguishes between being stumbled over and being kicked."

"Every opinion tends to become a law."

"A Constitution is not intended to embody a particular economic theory . . . It is made for people of fundamentally differing views, and the accident of our finding certain opinions natural and familiar, or novel, and even shocking, ought not to conclude our judgment upon the question whether statutes embodying them conflict with the Constitution of the United States."

"General propositions do not decide concrete cases."

"The liberty of the citizen to do as he likes so long as he does not interfere with the liberty of others to do the same, which has been a shibboleth for some well known writers, is interfered with by school laws, by the Post Office, by every state or municipal institution which takes his money for purposes thought desirable, whether he likes it or not."

"Now and then, an extraordinary case may turn up, but constitutional law, like other mortal contrivances, has to take some chances, and in the great majority of instances, no doubt, justice will be done."

"Life is painting a picture, not doing a sum."

"Life is a roar of bargain and battle, but in the very heart of it there rises a mystic spiritual tone that gives meaning to the whole. It transmutes the dull details into romance. It reminds us that our only but wholly adequate significance is as parts of the unimaginable whole. It suggests that even while living we are living to ends outside ourselves"

"Life is action, the use of one's powers. As to use them to their height is our joy and duty, so it is the one end that justifies itself."

"With all humility, I think, "Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might." Infinitely more important than the vain attempt to love one's neighbor as one's self. If you want to hit a bird on the wing, you must have all your will in focus, you must not be thinking about yourself, and equally, you must not be thinking about your neighbor: you must be living in your eye on that bird. Every achievement is a bird on the wing."

"Life is an end in itself, and the only question as to whether it is worth living is whether you have had enough of it."

"It is urged in the first place that contempts cannot be crimes, because, although punishable by imprisonment, and therefore, if crimes, infamous, they are not within the protection of the Constitution and the Amendments giving a right to trial by jury, etc., to persons charged with such crimes. But the provisions of the Constitution are not mathematical formulas having their essence in their form; they are organic, living institutions transplanted from English soil. Their significance is vital, not formal; it is to be gathered not simply by taking the words and a dictionary, but by considering their origin and the line of their growth."

"Whatever disagreement there may be as to the scope of the phrase "due process of law" there can be no doubt that it embraces the fundamental conception of a fair trial, with opportunity to be heard."

"The common law is not a brooding omnipresence in the sky, but the articulate voice of some sovereign or quasi sovereign that can be identified; although some decisions with which I have disagreed seem to me to have forgotten the fact."

"A word is not a crystal, transparent and unchanged, it is the skin of a living thought and may vary greatly in color and content according to the circumstances and the time in which it is used."

"The character of every act depends upon the circumstances in which it is done."

"The most stringent protection of free speech would not protect a man in falsely shouting fire in a theatre and causing a panic."

"The question in every case is whether the words used are used in such circumstances and are of such a nature as to create a clear and present danger that they will bring about the substantive evils that Congress has a right to prevent. It is a question of proximity and degree. When a nation is at war many things that might be said in time of peace are such a hindrance to its effort that their utterance will not be endured so long as men fight and that no Court could regard them as protected by any constitutional right."

"Vanity is the most philosophical of those feelings that we are taught to despise. For vanity recognizes that if a man is in a minority of one we lock him up, and therefore longs for an assurance from others that one's work has not been in vain."

"As I grow older I grow calm. If I feel what are perhaps an old man's apprehensions, that competition from new races will cut deeper than working men's disputes and will test whether we can hang together or can fight."

"I think it not improbable that man, like the grub that prepares a chamber for the winged thing it never has seen but is to be — that man may have cosmic destinies that he does not understand."

"I do not think the United States would come to an end if we lost our power to declare an Act of Congress void. I do think the Union would be imperiled if we could not make that declaration as to the laws of the several States."

"Most men think dramatically, not quantitatively, a fact that the rich would be wise to remember more than they do. We are apt to contrast the palace with the hovel, the dinner at Sherry's with the workingman's pail, and never ask how much or realize how little is withdrawn to make the prizes of success. (Subordinate prizes — since the only prize much cared for by the powerful is power. The prize of the general is not a bigger tent, but command.)"

"When twenty years ago a vague terror went over the earth and the word socialism began to be heard, I thought and still think that fear was translated into doctrines that had no proper place in the Constitution or the common law. Judges are apt to be naif, simple-minded men, and they need something of Mephistopheles. We too need education in the obvious—to learn to transcend our own convictions and to leave room for much that we hold dear to be done away with short of revolution by the orderly change of law."

"There is in all men a demand for the superlative, so much so that the poor devil who has no other way of reaching it attains it by getting drunk."

"Our test of truth is a reference to either a present or an imagined future majority in favor of our view."

"Certitude is not the test of certainty. We have been cocksure of many things that were not so."

"Deep-seated preferences cannot be argued about — you cannot argue a man into liking a glass of beer — and therefore, when differences are sufficiently far reaching, we try to kill the other man rather than let him have his way. But that is perfectly consistent with admitting that, so far as appears, his grounds are just as good as ours."

"That, at any rate, is the theory of our Constitution. It is an experiment, as all life is an experiment."

"It is only the present danger of immediate evil or an intent to bring it about that warrants Congress in setting a limit to the expression of opinion where private rights are not concerned."

"To allow opposition by speech seems to indicate that you think the speech impotent, as when a man says that he has squared the circle, or that you do not care whole-heartedly for the result, or that you doubt either your power or your premises. But when men have realized that time has upset many fighting faiths, they may come to believe even more than they believe the very foundations of their own conduct that the ultimate good desired is better reached by free trade in ideas —that the best test of truth is the power of the thought to get itself accepted in the competition of the market, and that truth is the only ground upon which their wishes safely can be carried out. That at any rate is the theory of our Constitution."

"I think that we should be eternally vigilant against attempts to check the expression of opinions that we loathe and believe to be fraught with death, unless they so imminently threaten immediate interference with the lawful and pressing purposes of the law that an immediate check is required to save the country."

"Only the emergency that makes it immediately dangerous to leave the correction of evil counsels to time warrants making any exception to the sweeping command, "Congress shall make no law...abridging the freedom of speech.""

"I always say, as you know, that if my fellow citizens want to go to Hell I will help them. It's my job."

"Men must turn square corners when they deal with the Government."

"Detached reflection cannot be demanded in the presence of an uplifted knife."

"A page of history is worth a volume of logic."

"If a thing has been practised for two hundred years by common consent, it will need a strong case for the Fourteenth Amendment to affect it."

"The general rule, at least, is that while property may be regulated to a certain extent, if regulation goes too far it will be recognized as a taking."

"I confess that I do not understand the principle on which the power to fix a minimum for the wages of women can be denied by those who admit the power to fix a maximum for their hours of work. I fully assent to the proposition that here as elsewhere the distinctions of the law are distinctions of degree, but I perceive no difference in the kind or degree of interference with liberty, the only matter with which we have any concern, between the one case and the other. The bargain is equally affected whichever half you regulate…. It will need more than the Nineteenth Amendment to convince me that there are no differences between men and women, or that legislation cannot take those differences into account."

"If I were dying, my last words would be, Have faith and pursue the unknown end."

"Eloquence may set fire to reason."

"If in the long run the beliefs expressed in proletarian dictatorship are destined to be accepted by the dominant forces of the community, the only meaning of free speech is that they should be given their chance and have their way."

"We have seen more than once that the public welfare may call upon the best citizens for their lives. It would be strange if it could not call upon those who already sap the strength of the State for these lesser sacrifices, often not felt to be such by those concerned, in order to prevent our being swamped with incompetence. It is better for all the world, if instead of waiting to execute degenerate offspring for crime, or to let them starve for their imbecility, society can prevent those who are manifestly unfit from continuing their kind....Three generations of imbeciles are enough."

"The power to tax is not the power to destroy while this Court sits."

"Courts are apt to err by sticking too closely to the words of a law where those words import a policy that goes beyond them."

"Some of her answers might excite popular prejudice, but if there is any principle of the Constitution that more imperatively calls for attachment than any other it is the principle of free thought—not free thought for those who agree with us but freedom for the thought that we hate."

"The elaborate argument against the constitutionality of the Act if interpreted as we read it, in accordance with its obvious meaning does not need an elaborate answer."

"Young man, the secret of my success is that at an early age I discovered that I was not God."

"There are some men, who as they approach 70, read the Bible and prepare to die. Others prepare themselves to live to 90. It has been my observation that if a man prepares to live to 90, but dies at 70, no harm is done. If however, a man prepares to live to 70 but ends up dying at 90, then his last 20 years will be hell."

"A river is more than an amenity, it is a treasure. It offers a necessity of life that must be rationed among those who have power over it."

"The interpretation of constitutional principles must not be too literal. We must remember that the machinery of government would not work if it were not allowed a little play in its joints."

"I have no respect for the passion of equality, which seems to me merely idealizing envy — I don't disparage envy but I don't accept it as legitimately my master."

"A good catchword can obscure analysis for fifty years."

"IF ALL the trees in all the woods were men; And each and every blade of grass a pen; If every leaf on every shrub and tree Turned to a sheet of foolscap; every sea Were changed to ink, and all earth’s living tribes Had nothing else to do but act as scribes, And for ten thousand ages, day and night, The human race should write, and write, and write, Till all the pens and paper were used up, And the huge inkstand was an empty cup, Still would the scribblers clustered round its brink Call for more pens, more paper, and more Ink ❦"

"Lawyers spend their professional careers shoveling smoke."

"Gentlemen, to the lady without whom I should never have survived for eighty, nor sixty, nor yet thirty years. Her smile has been my lyric, her understanding, the rhythm of the stanza. She has been the spring wherefrom I have drawn the power to write the words. She is the poem of my life."

"A second class mind, but a first class temperament."

"The mind of a bigot is like the pupil of the eye; the more light you pour upon it, the closer it contracts."

"Beware how you take away hope from any human being."

"A moment's insight is sometimes worth a lifetime's experience."

"Pretty much all the honest truth-telling there is in the world is done by children."

"To be 70 years young is sometimes far more cheerful and hopeful than to be 40 years old."

"A child's education should begin at least one hundred years before he was born."

"There is no friend like an old friend who has shared our morning days, no greeting like his welcome, no homage like his praise."

"A man's mind stretched to a new idea never goes back to its original dimensions."

"Old age is always fifteen years older than I am."

"Your right to swing your arms ends just where the other man's nose begins."

"Keep government poor and remain free."

"The young man knows the rules, but the old man knows the exceptions."

"Every now and then a man's mind is stretched by a new idea or sensation, and never shrinks back to its former dimensions."

"While a judge of the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts, when he found the long-winded speeches of the lawyers especially trying, he advised them gravely to take a course of reading risque books, that they might learn to say things by innuendo."

"Holmes was exacting in construing a statute and latitudinarian in construing powers under the Constitution. He often said that there was nothing in the Constitution that prevented the country from going to hell if it chose to. But once a statute was clearly constitutional and it became a matter of construing it, Holmes put on his most scrupulous spectacles."

"America is not broke. The very wealthy and hugely profitable corporations just aren't paying the taxes that, in the words of Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes more than a century ago, "are the price we pay for a civilized society.""

"An aristocrat in morals as in mind."

"The Islamic community today is faced with a new version of an old struggle. My late mother used to say it doesn't matter whether you came to this country on the Mayflower or on a slave ship, through Ellis Island or the Rio Grande. We're all in the same boat now."

"Ketanji Brown Jackson questioning appealing to the worst instincts of the American people"

"There’s a word, and the word is called misogynoir. And that word describes the double whammy that women of color have to face: You’re vulnerable on the issue of gender, and you’re vulnerable on the issue of race."

"If we can find some way to do this without destroying their machines, we'd be interested in hearing about that […] if that's the only way, then I'm all for destroying their machines. There's no excuse for anyone violating copyright laws."

"I’m not aware of it. I don’t pay much attention to his tweets. I’ll say this for ya: He’s been one of the best presidents I’ve served under. And the reasoning is, he’s not afraid to make decisions. He’s not afraid to take on the big mouths around here."

"…Senator Hatch taught us that an abusive tax system is particularly dangerous for freedom of religion or belief. Religious and spiritual movements are vulnerable, and ideologically motivated bureaucrats can do much damage to them. Tax reform and the defense of freedom of religion or belief are inseparable."

"Sex, a great and mysterious motive force in human life, has indisputably been a subject of absorbing interest to mankind through the ages."

"We consider this case against the background of a profound national commitment to the principle that debate on public issues should be uninhibited, robust, and wide-open, and that it may well include vehement, caustic, and sometimes unpleasantly sharp attacks on government and public officials."

"Our Nation is deeply committed to safeguarding academic freedom, which is of transcendent value to all of us, and not merely to the teachers concerned. That freedom is therefore a special concern of the First Amendment, which does not tolerate laws that cast a pall of orthodoxy over the classroom. "The vigilant protection of constitutional freedoms is nowhere more vital than in the community of American schools." Shelton v. Tucker, supra at 364 U. S. 487. The classroom is peculiarly the "marketplace of ideas." The Nation's future depends upon leaders trained through wide exposure to that robust exchange of ideas which discovers truth "out of a multitude of tongues, [rather] than through any kind of authoritative selection." United States v. Associated Press, 52 F. Supp. 362, 372. In Sweezy v. New Hampshire, 354 U. S. 234, 354 U. S. 250, we said: "The essentiality of freedom in the community of American universities is almost self-evident. No one should underestimate the vital role in a democracy that is played by those who guide and train our youth. To impose any strait jacket upon the intellectual leaders in our colleges and universities would imperil the future of our Nation. No field of education is so thoroughly comprehended by man that new discoveries cannot yet be made. Particularly is that true in the social sciences, where few, if any, principles are accepted as absolutes. Scholarship cannot flourish in an atmosphere of suspicion and distrust. Teachers and students must always remain free to inquire, to study and to evaluate, to gain new maturity and understanding; otherwise our civilization will stagnate and die.""

"If the right to privacy means anything, it is the right of the individual, married or single, to be free from unwarranted government intrusion into matters so fundamentally affecting a person as the decision whether to bear or begat a child."

"Our Nation has had a long and unfortunate history of sex discrimination, rationalized by an attitude of 'romantic paternalism' which, in practical effect, put women, not on a pedestal, but in a cage."

"More fundamentally, however, the answer to petitioners' objection is that there can be no impairment of executive power, whether on the state or federal level, where actions pursuant to that power are impermissible under the Constitution. Where there is no power, there can be no impairment of power."

"The genius of the Constitution rests not in any static meaning it might have had in a world that is dead and gone, but in the adaptability of its great principles to cope with current problems and current needs."

""The framers discerned fundamental principles.... But our acceptance of the fundamental principles has not and should not bind us to those precise, at times anachronistic, contours. We current justices read the Constitution in the only way that we can: as 20th-century Americans... The ultimate question must be, what do the words of the text mean in our time? For the genius of the Constitution rests not in any static meaning it might have had in a world that is dead and gone, but in the adaptability of its great principles to cope with current problems and current needs. What the constitutional fundamentals meant to the wisdom of other times cannot be their measure to the vision of our time. Similarly, what those fundamentals mean for us, our descendants will learn, cannot be their measure to the vision of their time."

"No doubt, there are those who believe that judges-and particularly dissenting judges-write to hear themselves say, as it were, I I I. And no doubt, there are also those who believe that judges are, like Joan Didion, primarily engaged in the writing of fiction. I cannot agree with either of those propositions."

"The Constitution was framed fundamentally as a bulwark against governmental power, and preventing the arbitrary administration of punishment is a basic ideal of any society that purports to be governed by the rule of law."

"If there is a bedrock principle of the First Amendment, it is that the government may not prohibit the expression of an idea simply because society finds the idea itself offensive or disagreeable."

"Yet the ultimate problem is more fundamental. I have long believed that the death penalty is in all circumstances a barbaric and inhuman punishment that violates our Constitution. Even the most vile murderer does not release the state from its constitutional obligation to respect human dignity, for the state does not honor the victim by emulating the murderer who took his life. The fatal infirmity of capital punishment is that it treats members of the human race as non-humans, as objects to be toyed with and discarded."

"The machinery chugs on unabated, belching out its dehumanizing product. It is distressing. But I refuse to despair. I know, one day, the Supreme Court will outlaw the death penalty. Permanently."

"If our free society is to endure, and I know it will, those who govern must recognize that the Framers of the Constitution limited their power in order to preserve human dignity and the air of freedom which is our proudest heritage."

"Brennan helped expand civil rights and liberties for all Americans. He supported abortion rights, opposed the death penalty, and provided new protections for freedom of the press. For example, in New York Times v. Sullivan (1964), Brennan established the "actual malice" standard, in which news outlets were protected from charges of libel as long as what they wrote was not deliberately false."

"Justices William Brennan and Thurgood Marshall were the last of the Court's liberals."

"Between Capitalism and Socialism there is no relationship of true and false. Both are instincts, and have the same historical rank, but one of them belongs to the Past, and one to the Future. Capitalism is a product of Rationalism and Materialism, and was the ruling force of the 19th century. Socialism is the form of an age of political Imperialism, of Authority, of historical philosophy, of superpersonal political imperative."

"The explanation Marxism offered of the significance of History was ludicrously simple, and in this very simplicity lay its charm, and its strength. The whole history of the world was merely the record of the struggle of classes. Religion, philosophy, science, technics, music, painting, poetry, nobility, priesthood, Emperor and Pope State, war, and politics — all are simply reflections of economics. Not economics generally, but the "struggle" of "classes." The most amazing thing about this ideological picture is that it was ever put forward seriously, or taken seriously."

"We have been born into a certain Culture, at a certain phase of its organic development, we have certain gifts. These condition the earthly task which we must perform. The metaphysical task is beyond any conditioning, for it would have been the same in any age anywhere. The earthly task is merely the form of the higher task, its organic vehicle."

"The question of who strikes first in a war is on the same level as who strikes first in a boxing contest."

"Feminism liberated women from the natural dignity of their sex and turned them into inferior men."

"Alliance does not mean love, any more than war means hate."

"Anti-Semitism is precisely analogous in Culture pathology to the formation of anti-bodies in the bloodstream in human pathology. In both cases, the organism is resisting the alien life. Both are inevitable, organically necessary, expressions of Destiny. In fulfilling the proper, Destiny combats the alien. It cannot be said too often that hatred and malice, tolerance and goodwill, have nothing whatever to do with this fundamental process. A Culture is an organism, an organism of a different class from man, just as man is an organism of a different class from animals. But the fundamental regularities of organic life are present in all organisms, of whatever class, plant, animal, man, Culture. This hierarchy of organisms is obviously part of the divine plan, and it cannot be changed by a process of propaganda, no matter how continuous, "tolerance," no matter how self-renouncing, or self-deception, no matter how complete."

"History is the continuous reinterpretation of the Past. History is thus continually "true," because, in each Age, the ruling historical outlook and values are the expression of the proper soul. The alternatives for History are not true or false, but effective or ineffective. Truth in the religio-philosophical mathematical sense, meaning timelessly, eternally valid, dissociated from the conditions of Life, does not pertain to History. History that is true is History that is effective in the minds of significant men."

"Before the First World War, Russia had figured as a Western State. Its ruling strata, its ruling outlook, were Western. The tension which existed between the Western elements of Russia and the Asiatic will-to-destruction underneath was however strained to the breaking point by the First World War, and the Asiatic elements, in conjunction with and assisted by the Culture-State-Nation-Race People-Society of the Jew all over the world, gained the upper hand and re-oriented Russia against Europe. From then onward, and also today, 1950, Russia figures as one of the leaders of the coloured revolt against the European race. But European possibilities still exist within Russia, because in certain strata of the population adherence to the great organism of the Western Culture is an instinct, an Idea, and no material force can ever wipe it out, even though it may be temporarily repressed and driven under."

"The soul of Europe cannot be occupied, ruled, or dominated by Culture-aliens. Only a materialist could think that the possession of the tangible appurtenances of power guarantees the eternal continuance of power. If that had been so, a few castes and States would have always ruled the world, from its beginning. But, in the ultimate test, power is the reflection of inner qualities, and these qualities are not possessed by any of the outer enemies of Europe. Their transitory empires are built on sand, because underlying them there is no superpersonal soul, no World-Mission, no World-Idea, no Destiny. Even in our short lives we have seen empires come and go, and the temporary power-agglomerations of Moscow and Washington will go the same way."

"The crude power structures of Washington and Moscow have no Past, and therefore no Future. They are without Tradition, without a World-Mission, without a Nation-Idea, without a Destiny, without organic unity, without a State, and without Imperial possibilities. Both of these formless things are mere pale caricatures of the one, true, World-Mission, which inheres in Europe alone. This Mission does not arise from human will, but is a direct emanation of God."

"What matters in politics above all, is not what one says, but what one does."

"Today Pravda says "Zionism is a tool of American imperialism". Tomorrow it will say: "American imperialism is the tool of Zionism"."

"Europe is equal to its historical task. Against the anti-spiritual, anti-heroic 'ideals' of America-Jewry, Europe pits its metaphysical ideas, its faith in its Destiny, its ethical principles, its heroism. Fearlessly, Europe falls in for battle, knowing it is armed with the mightiest weapon ever forged by History: the superpersonal Destiny of the European organism. Our European Mission is to create the Culture-State-Nation-Imperium of the West, and thereby we shall perform such deeds, accomplish such works, and so transform our world that our distant posterity, when they behold the remains of our buildings and ramparts, will tell their grandchildren that on the soil of Europe once dwelt a tribe of gods."

"A nation shows that it is dying when it ceases to believe in its Mission and its superiority."

"The nationality of an army is that of its political leadership, not of its common soldiers or its officer corps."

"In this century the idea of vertical race is dead. We can now view race only in horizontal terms — the race one feels in oneself is everything, the anatomic-geographic group to which one belongs means nothing. In this stage of our Cultural development, the principle of individuality reasserts itself, as it asserted itself in the earliest days of the Gothic. During the dark age of Materialism, it was believed that heredity and environment were everything; with the decline of Materialism the human Soul regains its former dignity. Everyone must now openly admit that the engrafting of the outworn nonsense of the vertical race notion onto the glorious European Resurgence of Authority brought about by the European Revolution of 1933 was an enormous tragedy — all the more so since the coupling of these two ideas was in no way necessary or even logical. In the Classical Culture, any man who was ethically equal to the Inner Imperative of Roman spirituality could rightly say: "Civis Romanus sum." In this, our Western Culture is somewhat akin to the Classical. Our touchstone of comradeship and belonging is spiritual-ethical not the old one of birth-place, cephalic-index, eye-color. In the 20th century, the century of elective affinities, materialistic tests are pure stupidity."

"Spiritually, the entire Western Civilization — particularly from 1750 onwards — was Anglicised. The thought- and action-systems of 19th century were English: Marxism arose on the basis of English capitalist economics; Darwinism reflects the English individualistic-competitive world-outlook; Materialism, Legalism, Capitalism, Social-Ethics — all are of English provenance, and they were the foundations of the 19th century."

"Every man of significance in our times is History-oriented, for one cannot profoundly understand our times, their Inner Imperative and Mission, unless one ponders deeply the meaning of Leibnitz' aphorism: Le présent est chargé du passé et gros de l’avenir. In his inner life, Western man now cannot take sides in the bygone struggles between Wallenstein and Gustavus Adolphus, Olivares and the Cortes, Richelieu and the Fronde, Stuarts and Parliament, Bourbons and Habsburgs, Church and State, England and Spain, Italy and Austria. Today the loftier European identifies himself with both sides in these titanic struggles, with the totality of our precious Western History, for that History is his own spiritual biography written before him in large letters. He, too, had his Gothic, Reformation, Enlightenment, and rationalist-revolutionary phase — his youthful religiosity and crusades, his Democratic-Liberal-Communist phase; and now, in his fullest maturity, he has entered, spiritually and materially, the Age of Absolute Politics, in which the struggle is planetary and its motive Cultural. That means not 19th century petty-states and nations, but that only the Culture-State-Nation-Imperium can take part in it."

"Americans are primarily economics-oriented. The Masculine Principle is to realize higher ideas through art, warfare, Politics. Nothing could be further from the American ideal than that. The Feminine Principle is to nourish and preserve life — that is the American ideal. Americans therefore do not delight in an "empire" that continually lays claim to their wealth and constantly demands a reduction in their standard-of-living. In its traditional isolation, America needed no armies, garrisons, subventions to foreign countries, and Great Wars. The superficial polarization of America has brought the American People economic injuries, and thus confirmed it in its isolation."

"American life is essentially oriented to economics, and every aspect of Life is simply referred for its justification thereto."

"An army means, first, morale; second, an officer-corps; third, a high command; and, fourth, the human material of the troops."

"The American People is matriarchal, isolationist, and interested only in economic matters."

"In Russia, Marxism is treated as a religion, for the prime characteristic of the Russian soul is its religiosity. Whatever this soul takes seriously, be it even the absurd end-product of Western materialism — Pavlovian reflexology, scientific psychology, — it deals with in a religious way, that is, in a way transcending action. Nowhere in Russian life is there anything that in any way corresponds to the Marxist schema."

"The Russian Soul is too virile ever to be strangled by something alien. Hence the Jewish entity, despite the dominant position to which it had attained with the Revolution of 1917, was incapable of maintaining its unconditional rule. The expulsion of Trotsky in 1928 marks the downward turning point for Jewry in Russia."

"So long as the Russian Soul, chaotic and full of longing, animated by a strong will yet of weak resolve, exists within the sphere of influence of a Western organism that is conscious of its World-Mission, there will remain in Russia a powerful urge towards reunion with the West. The European Revolution of 1933 found an echo in Russia, and when the European armies entered Bolshevist territory in 1941. They were hailed everyplace there as “liberators.” Marshal Vlasov could have raised armies of millions and affiliated them with the European military forces, but, unfortunately, the European Command did not make use of such aid until it was too late. The possibility indeed exists that a second monstrous upheaval — with a pro-Western Cultural aim — will overthrow the Bolshevist regime. This possibility might be realized either through a renewed Western invasion or through the appearance of a new Peter the Great. It is a further Imponderable. Today Europe must reckon with Russia as part of the Outer Revolt against its World-Mission."

"A person who believes that the seizing of the apparatus of power — government, army, police, press, education — guarantees the continuance of power is a political non-entity. Yet the whole Washington regime believes this. In philosophy they are materialists and thus cannot ever understand that visible facts are only the manifestation of invisible spiritual movements. To the extent that a people is materialistic in its religion and philosophy, it is non revolutionary, but the Russians are completely non-materialistic, being completely dominated by feelings, and acting always from their feelings. Thus it was that the Russians, even without disturbing the Bolshevik governmental structure or ideology, effected a complete revolution and deprived the Jewish leadership of all power. The Jew in contemporary Russia is allowed to be a Jew, if he is first and foremost a Russian. In other words he is not allowed to be a Jew, and is being exterminated without physical violence."

"What a curious picture it is to find man, homo sapiens, of divine origin, we are told, seriously considering going underground to escape the consequences of his own folly. With a little wisdom and foresight, surely it is not yet necessary to forsake life in the fresh air and in the warmth of the sunlight. What a paradox if our own cleverness in science should force us to live underground with the moles."

"The legislator is an indispensable guardian of our freedom. It is true that great executives have played a powerful role in the development of civilization, but such leaders appear sporadically, by chance. They do not always appear when they are most needed. The great executives have given inspiration and push to the advancement of human society, but it is the legislator who has given stability and continuity to that slow and painful progress."

"It is amazing how soon one becomes accustomed to the sound of one's voice, when forced to repeat a speech five or six times a day. As election day approaches, the size of the crowds grows; they are more responsive and more interested; and one derives a certain exhilaration from that which, only a few weeks before, was intensely painful. This is one possible explanation of unlimited debate in the Senate."

"When public men indulge themselves in abuse, when they deny others a fair trial, when they resort to innuendo and insinuation, to libel, scandal, and suspicion, then our democratic society is outraged, and democracy is baffled."

"Nature—pitiless in a pitiless universe—is certainly not concerned with the survival of Americans or, for that matter, of any of the two billion people now inhabiting this earth. Hence, our destiny, with the aid of God, remains in our own hands."

"The junior Senator from Wisconsin, by his reckless charges, has so preyed upon the fears and hatred of uninformed and credulous people that he has started a prairie fire, which neither he nor anyone else may be able to control."

"It is not our affluence, or our plumbing, or our clogged freeways that grip the imagination of others. Rather, it is the values upon which our system is built. These values imply our adherence not only to liberty and individual freedom, but also to international peace, law and order, and constructive social purpose. When we depart from these values, we do so at our peril."

"To me, the irony of this involvement with size, as I observed earlier, is the unwillingness or inability of so many Americans to identify themselves with something as vast as the United States. Bigger cars, bigger parking lots, bigger corporate structures, bigger farms, bigger drug stores, bigger supermarkets, bigger motion-picture screens. The tangible and the functional expand, while the intangible and the beautiful shrink. Left to wither is the national purpose, national educational needs, literature and theater, and our critical faculties. The national dialogue is gradually being lost in a froth of misleading self-congratulation and cliche. National needs and interests are slowly being submerged by the national preoccupation with the irrelevant."

"It seems to me that it is these extremists who are advocating a soft approach. Their oversimplifications and their baseless generalizations reflect the softness of those who cannot bear to face the burdens of a continuing struggle against a powerful and resourceful enemy. A truly tough approach, in my judgment, is one which accepts the challenge of communism with the courage and determination to meet it with every instrumentality of foreign policy—political and economic as well as military, and with the willingness to see the struggle through as far into the future as may be necessary. Those who seek to meet the challenge—or, in reality, to evade it—by bold adventures abroad and witch hunts at home are the real devotees of softness—the softness of seeking escape from painful realities by resort to illusory panaceas."

"The Soviet Union has indeed been our greatest menace — not so much because of what it has done, but because of the excuses it has provided us for our own failures."

"The citizen who criticizes his country is paying it an implied tribute."

"In these ways the war in Vietnam is poisoning and brutalizing our domestic life. Psychological incompatibility has proven to be more controlling than financial feasibility, and the Great Society has become a sick society."

"The price of empire is America's soul, and that price is too high."

"During a single week of July 1967, 164 Americans were killed and 2100 were wounded in city riots in the United States. We are truly fighting a two-front war and doing badly in both. Each war feeds on the other and, although the President assures us that we have the resources to win both wars, in fact we are not winning either."

"To give this activity even covert support is of a piece with the hypocrisy and cynicism for which the United States is constantly denouncing the Soviet Union in the United Nations and elsewhere. This point will not be lost on the rest of the world-nor on our own consciences."

"We would be deliberately violating the fundamental obligations we assumed in the Act of Bogota establishing the Organization of American States."

"The operation was wildly out of proportion to the threat. It would compromise our moral position in the world and make it impossible for us to protest treaty violations by the Communists."

"Power tends to confuse itself with virtue and a great nation is particularly susceptible to the idea that its power is a sign of God's favor, conferring upon it a special responsibility for other nations — to make them richer and happier and wiser, to remake them, that is, in its own shining image. Power confuses itself with virtue and tends also to take itself for omnipotence. Once imbued with the idea of a mission, a great nation easily assumes that it has the means as well as the duty to do God's work."

"In a democracy dissent is an act of faith. Like medicine, the test of its value is not its taste, but its effect, ..."

"A pre-emptive war in 'defense' of freedom would surely destroy freedom, because one simply cannot engage in barbarous action without becoming a barbarian, because one cannot defend human values by calculated and unprovoked violence without doing mortal damage to the values one is trying to defend."

"There are two Americas. One is the America of Lincoln and Adlai Stevenson; the other is the America of Teddy Roosevelt and the modern superpatriots. One is generous and humane, the other narrowly egotistical; one is self-critical, the other self-righteous; one is sensible, the other romantic; one is good-humored, the other solemn; one is inquiring, the other pontificating; one is moderate, the other filled with passionate intensity; one is judicious and the other arrogant in the use of great power."

"When I first got there I spotted Senator Fulbright, and I said to somebody who was with me, "I don't know if he remembers me-we met once-and I ought to go over and say hello." But, at that point, Fulbright came over to me. "I wanted to say hello," he said. "There isn't a day I don't read about you in the papers. You're doing a great job." It was good to hear him say that. I've always admired him."

"The spirit of Jefferson Davis lives in the 1984 Republican Platform."

"We need more meetings like this across the nation. The people in this room stand for the right principles and the right philosophy."

"I'm sure you petroleum folks understand that solar power will solve all our problems. How much money have we blown on that? This is the hippies' program from the seventies and they're still pushing this stuff."

"You could say that I favored segregation then. I don't now."

"I have made my condemnation of the white supremacist and racist view of this group, or any group, clear."

"This is not the way it has been done. We would never surprise each other … It's not to say that there's not important information that we could discuss or would be discussed in secret or closed session, but I'm astounded by this. I don't really know what the tenor of this is, what is the justification for it and why this extreme approach was used."

"I want to say this about my state: When Strom Thurmond ran for president, we voted for him. We're proud of it. And if the rest of the country had followed our lead, we wouldn't have had all these problems over the years, either."

"I've already seen enough. Why would I want to go see a bunch of perverted pictures?"

"I am an advocate of having a gold dollar with Reagan's picture on it, and calling it the Ronnie. The Canadians have the Loonie, and we can have the Ronnie."

"I want the President to look across the country and find the best man woman or minority that he can find."

"I don't agree with the libertarians. I want my security first. I'll deal with all the details after that."

"Why do they kill people of other religions because of religion? Why do they hate the Israelis and despise their right to exist? Why do they hate each other? Why do Sunnis kill Shiites? How do they tell the difference? They all look the same to me."

"[Congress] is not the British Parliament, and I hope it never will become the British Parliament... Are we going to bring the president in here and have a question period like the prime minister has in Great Britain?"

"The filibuster of federal district and circuit judges cannot stand. … It's bad for the institution. It's wrong. It's not supportable under the Constitution. And if they insist on persisting with these filibusters, I'm perfectly prepared to blow the place up. No problem."

"I support the Kinder-Guardians program. We in America would be wise to implement it, too. It's something that we should think about, America, about putting guns in the hands of law-abiding citizens, good guys, whether they be teachers or whether they actually be talented children or highly-trained preschoolers."

"We don't need a lot of Jim DeMint disciples. As soon as they get here, we need to co-opt them."

"Any suggestion that a segregated past was acceptable or positive is offensive and it is wrong. Recent comments by Senator Lott do not reflect the spirit of our country. He has apologized and rightly so. Every day our nation was segregated was a day that America was unfaithful to our founding ideals, and the founding ideals of our nation, and in fact the founding ideals of the political party I represent, was and remains today the equal dignity and equal rights of every American."

"Here is a Civil War movie that Trent Lott might enjoy."

"In 2002, Strom Thurmond, the unrepentant white supremacist and segregationist, turned one hundred years old. His birthday party was attended by then-president George W. Bush, among a roster of other political figures. Trent Lott, the Republican leader in the Senate, said in celebration, "I want to say this about my state [Mississippi]: When Strom Thurmond ran for president, we voted for him. We're proud of it. And if the rest of the country had followed our lead, we wouldn't have had all these problems over all these years, either." Segregation and Jim Crow had been part of Thurmond's platform during that campaign."

"Let's just get to the political heart of the matter, No matter what you want to call it, beyond border enforcement, a lot of people, particularly on our side, don't want to have a debate about this. Even if you debate it, you're wrong. Even if you're open-minded about compromise, you're wrong. It's a very simple answer to a complex problem. Send them all back. End of discussion, end of debate. Now that to me is not a realistic approach to a real problem."

"I'm not a libertarian. If you are, you're welcome to vote for me and help this party, but we're not gonna build the party around libertarian ideas."

"I want to talk very quickly about the world as we wish it to be. As we celebrate tonight, let's embrace in our hearts the world that we all wish it to be, a world where there's no rockets from Gaza, no Hezbollah attacks from the north, where Palestinian children go to school without being taught hate -- that's the world we wish it to be. An Iran controlled by its people, not some theocracy. An Iran governed by someone other than a Holocaust denier -- that's the world we wish it to be. An Iran pursuing peaceful nuclear power, not a nuclear weapon. A world where moderate Muslims are celebrated, not condemned and killed. An Afghanistan where a young girl never fears the soccer stadium, but can go to school and achieve her dreams. A free and independent Iraq where Sunnis, Shias, and Kurds can settle their differences at the ballot box and through the rule of law and be an inspiration to the Mideast. A UN, a United Nations that can actually control thugs and dictators. A United Nations that would never issue the Goldstone Report. That's the world as we wish it to be. This is the world as it is, and if you don't know the difference, then the world is a dangerous place. I know the difference between the world as we wish it to be and the world as it is. The world as it is, is a divided Palestinian people, a place that allows rockets to be launched from apartment buildings, a place for a mosques are weapon storage sites, a place where school children are taught hate -- that's the world as it is."

"And here's the first thing I would do if I were president of the United States. I wouldn't let Congress leave town until we fix this. I would literally use the military to keep them in if I had to. We're not leaving town until we restore these defense cuts. We are not leaving town until we restore the intel cuts."

"I am running (for president) because I think the world is falling apart."

"Everything I know about the Iranians I learned at the pool room," [Graham] said. "I met a lot of liars, and I know the Iranians are lying."

"We have never seen more threats against our nation and its citizens than we do today."

"There are bad people in this world who are motivated by hate."

"I can't explain this. I don't know what would make a young man at 21 get so sick and twisted to kill nine people in a church; this is beyond my understanding... There are real people out there who are organized to kill people in religion and based on race. But it's 2015 there are people out there looking for Christians to kill them. So this is a mean time we live in."

"As a party, we are better to risk losing without Donald Trump than trying to win with him. Enough already with Mister Trump."

"It’s like [choosing between] being shot or poisoned."

"If you killed Ted Cruz on the floor of the Senate, and the trial was in the Senate, nobody could convict you."

"If we nominate Trump, we will get destroyed... and we will deserve it."

"Embracing Donald Trump is embracing demographic death."

"I want you to use my words against me. If there’s a Republican president in 2016 and a vacancy [on the United States Supreme Court] occurs in the last year of the first term, you can say, “Lindsey Graham said, ‘Let’s let the next president, whoever it might be, make that nomination,’” and you could use my words against me, and you’d be absolutely right."

"Our government has a responsibility to defend our borders, but we must do so in a way that makes us safer and upholds all that is decent and exceptional about our nation."

"Finally, a president willing to take on this absurd policy of birthright citizenship. I’ve always supported comprehensive immigration reform – and at the same time – the elimination of birthright citizenship. In addition, I plan to introduce legislation along the same lines as the proposed executive order from President"

"I am trying to give a pretty clear signal I have made up my mind. I'm not trying to pretend to be a fair juror here. 'I'm not trying to pretend to be a fair juror here': Graham predicts Trump impeachment will 'die quickly' in Senate, December 14, 2019"

"To young people out there, young people of color, young immigrants, this is a great state, but one thing I can say without any doubt, you can be an African American and go to the Senate but you just have to share our values. If you’re a young, African American or an immigrant, you can go anywhere in this state, you just need to be conservative, not liberal. Graham debating Jamie Harrison in Columbia, South Carolina"

"What are you doing? Take back the Senate! You've got guns. Use them. We give you guns for a reason, use them. Lethal force should have been used. How come you didn't protect us? It's doing your job."

"I don’t want to reinforce that defiling the Capitol was okay. I don’t want to do anything that would make this more likely in the future. I hope they go to jail and get the book thrown at them because they deserve it."

"It is a sad day for the Supreme Court and a dangerous day for the Rule of Law. The radical assault on our institutions and the Constitution itself has reached a new level with the release of a draft opinion on a major issue facing the Court"

"If there’s a prosecution of Donald Trump for mishandling classified information, after the Clinton debacle … there’ll be riots in the streets."

"Here’s an offer to my Russian ‘friends’ who want to arrest and try me for calling out the Putin regime as being war criminals: I will submit to jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court if you do."

"[Military assistance to Ukraine] The best money we’ve ever spent."

"They're sitting on $10 to $12 trillion of critical minerals in Ukraine. They could be the richest country in all of Europe. I don't want to give that money and those assets to Putin to share with China. If we help Ukraine now, they can become the best business partner we ever dreamed of, that $10 to $12 trillion of critical mineral assets could be used by Ukraine and the West, not given to Putin and China. This is a very big deal how Ukraine ends. Let's help them win a war we can't afford to lose. Let's find a solution to this war. But they're sitting on a gold mine. To give Putin $10 or $12 trillion for critical minerals that he will share with China is ridiculous."

"They just need weapons to free their country of a terrible invasion. They're sitting on a trillion dollars' worth of minerals that could be good to our economy. So I want to keep helping our friends in Ukraine. We can win this. They need our help."

"The Prime Minister [i.e. Benjamin Netanyahu] convinced me that Israel is developing weapons that will change the future of warfare. They would love to partner with the United States, which is the most important form of aid we could ever give them and the most important event that would provide security to both countries."

"If Syrian government forces continue to advance in the north toward Raqqa, I will push for reimposing Caesar Act sanctions on steroids. Apparently no one in Syria is listening to me or other U.S. government officials. If this continues, not only will there be bone-crushing sanctions, it will permanently damage relationships between the U.S. and the new Syrian government."

"Senator Lindsey Graham, a South Carolina Republican and frequent critic of Iran’s Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s regime, posted a message on X in support of the widespread protests happening in the Mideast nation and assuring the protesters that President Donald Trump has “noticed” their resistance. “When President Trump says Make Iran Great Again, it means the protestors in Iran must prevail over the ayatollah,” Graham wrote, in part. “To all who are sacrificing in Iran, God bless. Help is on the way.” Anti-government protests have spread across Iran, marking the most significant challenge to the Ayatollah’s rule since the 2022 protests that kicked off following the death of Mahsa Amini. The newest wave of protests has unfolded over the past two weeks, with the Associated Press reporting the death toll has grown to at least 72 and over 2,300 others detained, citing the U.S.-based Human Rights Activists News Agency. The Iranian government is attempting to crackdown on the demonstrations that started in response to a deteriorating economy and a currency that is plummeting in value as inflation spikes. Authorities initially sought dialogue with the protesters, seeking to avoid the images that marked the mass protests in 2019 and 2022, but ultimately the unrest continued to spread and violence at the hands of the security forces unfolded."

"Graham reposted a New York Post article that mentioned Trump reposting an earlier message about Iran, to which the senator added a new message in support of and directed to “THE IRANIAN PEOPLE.” “Your long nightmare is soon coming to a close. Your bravery and determination to end your oppression has been noticed by [POTUS] and all who love freedom,” the senator wrote. “...That is the clearest signal yet that he, President Trump understands Iran will never be great with the ayatollah and his henchmen in charge. To all who are sacrificing in Iran, God bless. Help is on the way.” The senator’s earlier message on Saturday, which Trump reposted, hit out at the Obama administration for seemingly failing to stand up to the Iranian government “and standing behind the people of Iran protesting for a better life.” “To the regime leadership: your brutality against the great people of Iran will not go unchallenged. Make Iran Great Again,” Graham wrote, which was in turn a response to U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s own message of support for the protests. The U.S., which has had a strained, distrustful relationship with Iran since the 1979 Iranian Revolution, has been increasingly vocal on Iran in recent days. Last week, President Donald Trump voiced support for the protesters and warned Iran that the U.S. is “locked and loaded and ready to go.”"

"The reason to condemn Trump and Graham for their “lynching” remarks is not to score a partisan point or because it will make a difference in their language or behavior. It’s because we haven’t actually resolved the trauma of the past. Historical spaces are still contested. The scars are still present."

"This is deeply misleading at best and laughably false at worst. You could, I suppose, defend Graham’s assertion by saying that we face a greater number of threats than we have in the past. But it makes very little sense in a country that, among other things, has seen its own White House burned down, fought a bloody civil war and two world wars, and survived several close brushes with apocalyptic thermonuclear war during the Cold War."

"The Senator's repulsive remarks are racist, period. This type of discourse should have no place in American politics... Graham essentially admits to being a bigot, because nothing says 'I'm stereotyping' more than basing judgment of an entire people solely on a handful of interactions in a pool room... Graham's racist statement raises concerns about his ability to speak on vital national security matters such as the nuclear negotiations with Iran. Because if you judge an entire people based on your experience running a pool hall-liquor store, do you really have the judgment to keep America safe? This is Graham's 'I can see Russia from my house' moment... Senator Graham owes the Iranian-American community, one of the most successful communities in the United States, an apology. And all others presidential hopefuls,Republicans and Democrats, should condemn his bigoted comments."

"I would use him as a canary in the coalmine and the degree to which he has doubled, tripled and quadrupled down on Trump says everything. Whether you like him or not, he has a good political nose for his base. He knows South Carolina well and his reading the tea leaves is not to be dismissed."

"I blame myself for Lindsey Graham, because the only reason he won in the Great State of South Carolina is because I Endorsed him!"

"Trump’s normally loquacious rivals are swaggeringly eager to confront Vladimir Putin, but are too invertebrate — Lindsey Graham is an honorable exception — to voice robust disgust with Trump and the spirit of, the police measures necessary for, and the cruelties that would accompany, his policy."

"Trump seemed to love the adulation but said to Graham, "You're a middle-of-the-road guy. I want you to be 100 percent for Trump." This resembled the loyalty pledge that then FBI director James Comey said that Trump had asked of him. According to Comey, Trump had said, "I need loyalty. I expect loyalty," during their now famous one-on-one Green Room dinner in the White House during the first week of the Trump presidency. "Okay, what's the issue?" Graham asked, "and I'll tell you whether I'm 100 percent for you or not." "You're like 82 percent," Trump said. "Well, some days I'm 100 percent. Some days I may be zero." "I want you to be a 100 percent guy." "Why would you want me to tell you you're right when I think you're wrong? What good does that do for you or me?" Graham asked. "Presidents need people that can tell them the truth as they see it. It's up to you to see if I'm full of shit.""

"The dead-seated hatreds of American politics flourished in the Trump years. He stoked them, and did not make concerted efforts to bring the country together. Nor did the Democrats. Trump felt deeply wronged by the Democrats who felt deeply wronged by Trump. The walls between them only grew higher and thicker. My 17 interviews with Trump presented a challenge. He denounced Fear, my first book on him, as untrue, a "scam" and a "joke," calling me a "Dem operative." Several of those closest to him told him that the book was true, and Lindsey Graham told him that I would not put words in his mouth and would report as accurately as possible. Trump decided, for reasons that are not clear to me, that he would cooperate. To his mind, he would become a reliable source. He is reliable at times, completely unreliable at others, and often mixed... But the interviews show he vacillated, prevaricated and at times dodged his role as leader of the country despite his "I alone can fix it" rhetoric. As America and the world know, Trump is an overpowering presence. He loves spectacle. In a time of crisis, the operational is much more important than the political or the personal. For tens of millions the optimistic American story has turned into a nightmare."

"Some kinds of government regulation of private consensual homosexual behavior may face substantial constitutional challenge."

"One can conclude that certain essential, or fundamental, rights should exist in any just society. It does not follow that each of those essential rights is one that we as judges can enforce under the written Constitution. The Due Process Clause is not a guarantee of every right that should inhere in an ideal system. Many argue that a just society grants a right to engage in homosexual conduct. If that view is accepted, the Bowers decision in effect says the State of Georgia has the right to make a wrong decision — wrong in the sense that it violates some people's views of rights in a just society. We can extend that slightly to say that Georgia's right to be wrong in matters not specifically controlled by the Constitution is a necessary component of its own political processes. Its citizens have the political liberty to direct the governmental process to make decisions that might be wrong in the ideal sense, subject to correction in the ordinary political process."

"Indeed I do and I admire it. I am a practicing Catholic."

"The First Amendment is often inconvenient. But that is beside the point. Inconvenience does not absolve the government of its obligation to tolerate speech."

"Sometimes you don't know if you're Caesar about to cross the Rubicon or Captain Queeg cutting your own tow line."

"Why did I resign you ask?"

"At the heart of liberty is the right to define one's own concept of existence, of meaning, of the universe, and of the mystery of human life. Beliefs about these matters could not define the attributes of personhood were they formed under compulsion of the State. … people have organized intimate relationships and made choices that define their views of themselves and their places in society, in reliance on the availability of abortion in the event that contraception should fail…. We conclude the line should be drawn at viability, so that, before that time, the woman has a right to choose to terminate her pregnancy…. there is no line other than viability which is more workable. To be sure, as we have said, there may be some medical developments that affect the precise point of viability, but this is an imprecision within tolerable limits. … A husband has no enforceable right to require a wife to advise him before she exercises her personal choices."

"We must never lose sight of the fact that the law has a moral foundation, and we must never fail to ask ourselves not only what the law is, but what the law should be."

"Even laws enacted for broad and ambitious purposes often can be explained by reference to legitimate public policies which justify the incidental disadvantages they impose on certain persons. Amendment 2, however, in making a general announcement that gays and lesbians shall not have any particular protections from the law, inflicts on them immediate, continuing, and real injuries that outrun and belie any legitimate justifications that may be claimed for it. We conclude that, in addition to the far-reaching deficiencies of Amendment 2 that we have noted, the principles it offends, in another sense, are conventional and venerable; a law must bear a rational relationship to a legitimate governmental purpose, Kadrmas v. Dickinson Public Schools, 487 U. S. 450, 462 (1988), and Amendment 2 does not."

"The primary rationale the State offers for Amendment 2 is respect for other citizens' freedom of association, and in particular the liberties of landlords or employers who have personal or religious objections to homosexuality. Colorado also cites its interest in conserving resources to fight discrimination against other groups. The breadth of the amendment is so far removed from these particular justifications that we find it impossible to credit them. We cannot say that Amendment 2 is directed to any identifiable legitimate purpose or discrete objective. It is a status-based enactment divorced from any factual context from which we could discern a relationship to legitimate state interests; it is a classification of persons undertaken for its own sake, something the Equal Protection Clause does not permit. "[C]lass legislation ... [is] obnoxious to the prohibitions of the Fourteenth Amendment .... " Civil Rights Cases, 109 U. S., at 24. We must conclude that Amendment 2 classifies homosexuals not to further a proper legislative end but to make them unequal to everyone else. This Colorado cannot do. A State cannot so deem a class of persons a stranger to its laws. Amendment 2 violates the Equal Protection Clause, and the judgment of the Supreme Court of Colorado is affirmed. It is so ordered."

"In the federal confirmation process, a standard question from the judiciary committee is, "Well, if you're confirmed will you legislate?" And, with a look of horror, the nominee says, "Oh, I won't legislate." Well, what about the law of contract and tort; where do they think it came from, the stork?"

"Our system presumes that there are certain principles that are more important than the temper of the times. And you must have a judge who is detached, who is independent, who is fair, who is committed only to those principles, and not public pressures of other sort."

"The fetus, in many cases, dies just as a human adult or child would: It bleeds to death as it is torn from limb from limb. The fetus can be alive at the beginning of the dismemberment process and can survive for a time while its limbs are being torn off."

"The Supreme Court of Florida has said that the legislature intended the State's electors to "participat[e] fully in the federal electoral process," as provided in 3 U. S. C. §5. That statute, in turn, requires that any controversy or contest that is designed to lead to a conclusive selection of electors be completed by December 12. That date is upon us, and there is no recount procedure in place under the State Supreme Court's order that comports with minimal constitutional standards. Because it is evident that any recount seeking to meet the December 12 date will be unconstitutional for the reasons we have discussed, we reverse the judgment of the Supreme Court of Florida ordering a recount to proceed. Seven Justices of the Court agree that there are constitutional problems with the recount ordered by the Florida Supreme Court that demand a remedy."

"First Amendment freedoms are most in danger when the government seeks to control thought or to justify its laws for that impermissible end. The right to think is the beginning of freedom, and speech must be protected from the government because speech is the beginning of thought."

"The argument, in essence, is that protected speech may be banned as a means to ban unprotected speech. This analysis turns the First Amendment upside down. The Government may not suppress lawful speech as the means to suppress unlawful speech. Protected speech does not become unprotected merely because it resembles the latter. The Constitution requires the reverse."

"Liberty protects the person from unwarranted government intrusions into a dwelling or other private places. In our tradition the State is not omnipresent in the home. And there are other spheres of our lives and existence, outside the home, where the State should not be a dominant presence. Freedom extends beyond spatial bounds. Liberty presumes an autonomy of self that includes freedom of thought, belief, expression, and certain intimate conduct. The instant case involves liberty of the person both in its spatial and more transcendent dimensions"

"The instant case involves liberty of the person both in its spatial and more transcendent dimensions.... Bowers was not correct when it was decided, and it is not correct today.... As the Constitution endures, persons in every generation can invoke its principles in their own search for greater freedom."

"Had those who drew and ratified the Due Process Clauses of the Fifth Amendment or the Fourteenth Amendment known the components of liberty in its manifold possibilities, they might have been more specific. They did not presume to have this insight. They knew times can blind us to certain truths and later generations can see that laws once thought necessary and proper in fact serve only to oppress. As the Constitution endures, persons in every generation can invoke its principles in their own search for greater freedom."

"It is proper that we acknowledge the overwhelming weight of international opinion against the juvenile death penalty."

"When a juvenile offender commits a heinous crime, the State can exact forfeiture of some of the most basic liberties, but the State cannot extinguish his life and his potential to attain a mature understanding of his own humanity."

"The Constitution doesn't belong to a bunch of judges and lawyers. It belongs to you."

"I knew Earl Warren very well, on a somewhat professional basis. Professional, as in I was a nine-year-old page boy and he was the Governor. We knew his children and played in the Governor's Mansion and so forth. I have a letter I've given to the Supreme Court Historical Society, in which he wrote and said, "You're going to go very far in government." I'm very proud of the fact that I knew well someone who later became the Chief Justice of the United States."

"[T]his Court now concludes that independent [political] expenditures, including those made by corporations, do not give rise to corruption or the appearance of corruption."

"Speech is an essential mechanism of democracy, for it is the means to hold officials accountable to the people. [...] The right of citizens to inquire, to hear, to speak, and to use information to reach consensus is a precondition to enlightened self-government and a necessary means to protect it. [...] By taking the right to speak from some and giving it to others, the Government deprives the disadvantaged person or class of the right to use speech to strive to establish worth, standing, and respect for the speaker’s voice. The Government may not by these means deprive the public of the right and privilege to determine for itself what speech and speakers are worthy of consideration. The First Amendment protects speech and speaker, and the ideas that flow from each."

"When Government seeks to use its full power, including the criminal law, to command where a person may get his or her information or what distrusted source he or she may not hear, it uses censorship to control thought. This is unlawful. The First Amendment confirms the freedom to think for ourselves."

"The remedy for speech that is false is speech that is true. This is the ordinary course in a free society. The response to the unreasoned is the rational; to the uninformed, the enlightened; to the straight-out lie, the simple truth."

"Only a weak society needs government protection or intervention before it pursues its resolve to preserve the truth. Truth needs neither handcuffs nor a badge for its vindication."

"The essence of democracy is that the right to make law rests in the people and flows to the government, not the other way around. Freedom resides first in the people without need of a grant from government."

"Dignitary wounds cannot always be healed with the stroke of a pen."

"The nature of injustice is that we may not always see it in our own times. The generations that wrote and ratified the Bill of Rights and the Fourteenth Amendment did not presume to know the extent of freedom in all of its dimensions, and so they entrusted to future generations a charter protecting the right of all persons to enjoy liberty as we learn its meaning. When new insight reveals discord between the Constitution’s central protections and a received legal stricture, a claim to liberty must be addressed."

"No union is more profound than marriage, for it embodies the highest ideals of love, fidelity, devotion, sacrifice, and family. In forming a marital union, two people become something greater than once they were. As some of the petitioners in these cases demonstrate, marriage embodies a love that may endure even past death. It would misunderstand these men and women to say they disrespect the idea of marriage. Their plea is that they do respect it, respect it so deeply that they seek to find its fulfillment for themselves. Their hope is not to be condemned to live in loneliness, excluded from one of civilization's oldest institutions. They ask for equal dignity in the eyes of the law. The Constitution grants them that right."

"The freedom secured by the Constitution consists, in one of its essential dimensions, of the right of the individual not to be injured by the unlawful exercise of governmental power. The mandate for segregated schools, Brown v. Board of Education, 347 U. S. 483 (1954); a wrongful invasion of the home, Silverman v. United States, 365 U. S. 505 (1961); or punishing a protester whose views offend others, Texas v. Johnson, 491 U. S. 397 (1989); and scores of other examples teach that individual liberty has constitutional protection, and that liberty’s full extent and meaning may remain yet to be discovered and affirmed. Yet freedom does not stop with individual rights. Our constitutional system embraces, too, the right of citizens to debate so they can learn and decide and then, through the political process, act in concert to try to shape the course of their own times and the course of a nation that must strive always to make freedom ever greater and more secure. Here Michigan voters acted in concert and statewide to seek consensus and adopt a policy on a difficult subject against a historical background of race in America that has been a source of tragedy and persisting injustice. That history demands that we continue to learn, to listen, and to remain open to new approaches if we are to aspire always to a constitutional order in which all persons are treated with fairness and equal dignity. Were the Court to rule that the question addressed by Michigan voters is too sensitive or complex to be within the grasp of the electorate; or that the policies at issue remain too delicate to be resolved save by university officials or faculties, acting at some remove from immediate public scrutiny and control; or that these matters are so arcane that the electorate’s power must be limited because the people cannot prudently exercise that power even after a full debate, that holding would be an unprecedented restriction on the exercise of a fundamental right held not just by one person but by all in common. It is the right to speak and debate and learn and then, as a matter of political will, to act through a lawful electoral process."

"The respondents in this case insist that a difficult question of public policy must be taken from the reach of the voters, and thus removed from the realm of public discussion, dialogue, and debate in an election campaign. Quite in addition to the serious First Amendment implications of that position with respect to any particular election, it is inconsistent with the underlying premises of a responsible, functioning democracy. One of those premises is that a democracy has the capacity—and the duty—to learn from its past mistakes; to discover and confront persisting biases; and by respectful, rationale deliberation to rise above those flaws and injustices. That process is impeded, not advanced, by court decrees based on the proposition that the public cannot have the requisite repose to discuss certain issues. It is demeaning to the democratic process to presume that the voters are not capable of deciding an issue of this sensitivity on decent and rational grounds. The process of public discourse and political debate should not be foreclosed even if there is a risk that during a public campaign there will be those, on both sides, who seek to use racial division and discord to their own political advantage. An informed public can, and must, rise above this. The idea of democracy is that it can, and must, mature. Freedom embraces the right, indeed the duty, to engage in a rational, civic discourse in order to determine how best to form a consensus to shape the destiny of the Nation and its people."

"A fundamental principle of the First Amendment is that all persons have access to places where they can speak and listen, and then, after reflection, speak and listen once more. The Court has sought to protect the right to speak in this spatial context. A basic rule, for example, is that a street or a park is a quintessential forum for the exercise of First Amendment rights. See Ward v. Rock Against Racism, 491 U. S. 781, 796 (1989). Even in the modern era, these places are still essential venues for public gatherings to celebrate some views, to protest others, or simply to learn and inquire."

"Our society has come to the recognition that gay persons and gay couples cannot be treated as social outcasts or as inferior in dignity and worth. For that reason the laws and the Constitution can, and in some instances must, protect them in the exercise of their civil rights. The exercise of their freedom on terms equal to others must be given great weight and respect by the courts. At the same time, the religious and philosophical objections to gay marriage are protected views and in some instances protected forms of expression. As this Court observed in Obergefell v. Hodges, 576 U. S. ___ (2015), “[t]he First Amendment ensures that religious organizations and persons are given proper protection as they seek to teach the principles that are so fulfilling and so central to their lives and faiths.” Id., at ___ (slip op., at 27). Nevertheless, while those religious and philosophical objections are protected, it is a general rule that such objections do not allow business owners and other actors in the economy and in society to deny protected persons equal access to goods and services under a neutral and generally applicable public accommodations law. See Newman v. Piggy Park Enterprises, Inc., 390 U. S. 400, 402, n. 5 (1968) (per curiam); see also Hurley v. Irish-American Gay, Lesbian and Bisexual Group of Boston, Inc., 515 U. S. 557, 572 (1995) (“Provisions like these are well within the State’s usual power to enact when a legislature has reason to believe that a given group is the target of discrimination, and they do not, as a general matter, violate the First or Fourteenth Amendments”)."

"The First Amendment prohibits the establishment of religion and promises the free exercise of religion. From these safeguards, and from the guarantee of freedom of speech, it follows there is freedom of belief and expression. It is an urgent necessity that officials adhere to these constitutional guarantees and mandates in all their actions, even in the sphere of foreign affairs. An anxious world must know that our Government remains committed always to the liberties the Constitution seeks to preserve and protect, so that freedom extends outward, and lasts."

"In June 2003, the U.S. Supreme Court's majority opinion in Lawrence overruled Bowers. Kennedy wrote the opinion for the majority, which was long on philosophy and short on precedent. Kennedy's opinion in Lawrence is a result in search of a rationale. He began with "Liberty protects the person from unwarranted government intrusions into a dwelling or other private places." This statement means absolutely nothing from a constitutional perspective. Every criminal or immoral act can be justified on the grounds of exercising liberty. But Kennedy has a purpose in such an approach. By using the catchall word "liberty" rather than applying the Constitution to the issue, he seeks to expand the plain meaning of the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment (which prohibits states from depriving "any person of life, liberty, or property without due process of law") to grant rights not mentioned elsewhere in the Constitution."

"Kennedy and the majority explicitly overruled Bowers and wrote that Stevens's original reasoning, in dissent, that morality alone is not a legitimate basis to support a law was right. Scalia countered, "This effectively decrees the end of all morals legislation. If, as the Court asserts, the promotion of majoritarian sexual morality is not even a legitimate state interest, [no law against fornication, bigamy, adultery, adult incest, bestiality, and obscenity] can survive rational-basis review. Kennedy, traveling further and further away from his judicial responsibility to interpret the Constitution, wrote of an "emerging awareness that liberty gives substantial protection" to sexual decisions and reviewed how sodomy laws had been repealed in most states and even in Europe, where the European Court of Human Rights found sodomy laws invalid under the European Convention on Human Rights. Kennedy concluded with a lecture about liberty: "The petitioners are entitled to respect their private lives. The State cannot demean their existence or control their destiny by making their private sexual conduct a crime. Their right to liberty under the Due Process Clause gives them full right to engage in their conduct without intervention of the government... The Texas statute furthers no legitimate state interest which can justify its intrusion into the personal and private life of the individual." (Emphasis added.)"

"John Brown deserves to be hung for being a hopeless fool! He attempted to capture Virginia with seventeen men when he ought to know that it would require at least twenty-five."

"There is a wrong impression about one of the candidates. There is no such person running as James Buchanan. He is dead of lock-jaw. Nothing remains but a platform and a bloated mass of political putridity."

"It has been suggested that the President intentionally left those forts in a defenseless condition, that South Carolina might seize them before his successor had time to take means for their safety. I cannot believe it; I will not believe it, for it would make Mr. Buchanan a more odious traitor than Benedict Arnold. Every drop of blood that shall be shed in the conflict would sit heavy on his soul forever."

"Gentlemen on this floor and in the Senate, had repeatedly, during this discussion, asserted that slavery was a moral, political, and personal blessing; that the slave was free from care, contented, happy, fat, and sleek. Comparisons have been instituted between slaves and laboring freemen, much to the advantage of the condition of slavery. Instances are cited where the slave, having tried freedom, had voluntarily returned to resume his yoke. Well, if this be so, let us give all a chance to enjoy this blessing. Let the slaves, who choose, go free; and the free, who choose, become slaves. If these gentlemen believe there is a word of truth in what they preach, the slaveholder need be under no apprehension that he will ever lack bondsmen. Their slaves would remain, and many freemen would seek admission into this happy condition. Let them be active in propagating their principles. We will not complain if they establish Societies in the South for that purpose -- abolition societies to abolish freedom. Nor will we rob the mails to search for incendiary publications in favor of slavery, even if they contain seductive pictures, and cuts of those implements of happiness -- handcuffs, iron yokes and cat-o'-nine tails."

"You must be a bastard for I knew your mother's husband and he was a gentleman and honest man."

"I never thought of it that way, but it does relieve God Almighty of a heavy responsibility."

"I wished that I were the owner of every southern slave, that I might cast off the shackles from their limbs, and witness the rapture which would excite them in the first dance of their freedom."

"I can never acknowledge the right of slavery. I will bow down to no deity however worshipped by professing Christians — however dignified by the name of the Goddess of Liberty, whose footstool is the crushed necks of the groaning millions, and who rejoices in the resoundings of the tyrant’s lash, and the cries of his tortured victims."

"There can be no fanatics in the cause of genuine liberty. Fanaticism is excessive zeal. There may be, and have been fanatics in false religion – in the bloody religions of the heathen. There are fanatics in superstition. But there can be no fanatic, however warm their zeal, in the true religion, even although you sell your goods and bestow your money on the poor, and go on and follow your heart your Master. There may, and every hour shows around me, fanatics in the cause of false liberty – that infamous liberty which justifies human bondage, that liberty whose ‘corner-stone is slavery.’ But there can be no fanaticism however high the enthusiasm, in the cause of rational, universal liberty – the liberty of the Declaration of Independence."

"It is my purpose nowhere in these remarks to make personal reproaches; I entertain no ill-will toward any human being, nor any brute, that I know of, not even the skunk across the way to which I referred. Least of all would I reproach the South. I honor her courage and fidelity. Even in a bad, a wicked cause, she shows a united front. All her sons are faithful to the cause of human bondage, because it is their cause. But the North - the poor, timid, mercenary, driveling North - has no such united defenders of her cause, although it is the cause of human liberty. None of the bright lights of the nation shine upon her section. Even her own great men have turned her accusers. She is the victim of low ambition - an ambition which prefers self to country, personal aggrandizement to the high cause of human liberty. She is offered up a sacrifice to propitiate southern tyranny - to conciliate southern treason."

"Every humane and patriotic heart must grieve to see a bloody and causeless rebellion, costing thousands of human lives and millions of treasure. But as it was predetermined and inevitable, it was long enough delayed. Now is the appropriate time to solve the greatest problem ever submitted to civilized man."

"Our object should be not only to end this terrible war now, but to prevent its recurrence. All must admit that slavery is the cause of it. Without slavery we should this day be a united and happy people... The principles of our Republic are wholly incompatible with slavery."

"I will be satisfied if my epitaph shall be written thus: "Here lies one who never rose to any eminence, who only courted the low ambition to have it said that he striven to ameliorate the condition of the poor, the lowly, the downtrodden of every race and language and color.""

"It is said the South will never submit — that we cannot conquer the rebels — that they will suffer themselves to be slaughtered, and their whole country to be laid waste. Sir, war is a grievous thing at best, and civil war more than any other ; but if they hold this language, and the means which they have suggested must be resorted to ; if their whole country must be laid waste and made a desert, in order to save this Union from destruction, so let it be. I would rather, Sir, reduce them to a condition where their whole country is to be re-peopled by a band of freemen, than to see them perpetrate the destruction of this people through our agency. I do not say it is time to resort to such means, and I do not say that the time will come, but I never fear to express my sentiments. It is not a question with me of policy, but a question of principle."

"I repose in this quiet and secluded spot not from any natural preference for solitude, but finding other cemeteries limited as to race by charter rules, I have chosen this that I might illustrate in my death the principles which I advocated through a long life: EQUALITY OF MAN BEFORE HIS CREATOR."

"When the war ends, I intend to push for full equality, the Negro vote and much more. Congress shall mandate the seizure of every foot of rebel land and every dollar of their property. We’ll use their confiscated wealth to establish hundreds of thousands of free Negro farmers, and at their side soldiers armed to occupy and transform the heritage of traitors. We'll build up a land down there of free men and free women and free children and freedom. The nation needs to know that we have such plans."

"Ah, shit on the people and what they want and what they’re ready for! I don’t give a goddamn about the people and what they want! This is the face of someone who has fought long and hard for the good of the people without caring much for any of ‘em. And I look a lot worse without the wig. The people elected me! To represent them! To lead them! And I lead! You ought to try it!"

"Oh, how you have longed to say that to me. You claim you trust them but you know what the people are. You know that the inner compass that should direct the soul toward justice has ossified in white men and women, north and south, unto utter uselessness through tolerating the evil of slavery. White people cannot bear the thought of sharing this country's infinite abundance with Negroes."

"He that hath a trade, hath an estate."

"All free governments are managed by the combined wisdom and folly of the people."

"Whoever cracked Thaddeus Stevens' skull would let out the brains of the Republican Party."

"God give to Vermont another son; Lancaster, another citizen; Pennsylvania, another statesman; the country, another patriot; the poor, another friend; the freedmen, another advocate; the race, another benefactor; and the world, another man like Thaddeus Stevens."

"Thaddeus Stevens, the clearest-headed leader of this attempt at industrial democracy, made his last speech, impeaching Andrew Johnson on February 16, and on February 23 I was born."

"In this study the term "abolitionist" will be applied to those Americans who before the Civil War had agitated for immediate, unconditional, and universal abolition of slavery in the United States. Contemporaries of the antislavery movement and later historians have sometimes mistakenly used the word "abolitionist" to describe adherents of the whole spectrum of antislavery sentiment. Members of the Free Soil and Republican parties have often been called abolitionists, even though these parties were pledged officially before 1861 only to the limitation of slavery, not to its extirpation. It is a moot question whether such radical anti-slavery leaders such as Charles Sumner, John Andrew, George Julian, Thaddeus Stevens, or Owen Lovejoy were genuine "abolitionists". In their hearts they probably desired an immediate end to slavery as fervently as did William Lloyd Garrison. But they were committed publicly by political affiliation and party responsibility to a set of principles that fell short of genuine abolitionism."

"In the months after the Civil War, slavery remained constitutional and African Americans were still not guaranteed the right to vote or even to count themselves as citizens. The states of the Confederacy were beaten, but there was no consensus on how to readmit them to the Union. Republicans dominated Congress, but the President—Andrew Johnson—was a southern Democrat. The Era of Reconstruction began on this confused footing, but with one brilliant Pennsylvanian ready to fight for what he believed. That man was Congressman Thaddeus Stevens of Lancaster... No other man of his era did as much to guarantee the rights of citizenship for African Americans. Decades before the Civil War, Stevens advocated full equality for black people. In Congress after the war, he very nearly had the power to make that happen. He understood that laws alone could not ensure racial equality and strenuously urged the utter destruction of the old southern elites so that a new order could be built. That was too much for his contemporaries, and the Civil Rights Movement was left for a later generation. Disappointed, Stevens said that he would 'take all I can get in the cause of humanity and leave it to be perfected by better men in better times'. Stevens would have taken great pleasure in knowing that the 'better man' was a black man from a Southern state. He would have taken no pleasure at all in knowing that the 'better times' were a century away... Thaddeus Stevens was a man before his time. As early as the 1830s he was using his own money to buy slaves' freedom and defending free blacks in court at no charge. His true goal was not an end to slavery, but actual equality among the races. He even protested California's discrimination against Chinese immigrants and argued for more humane treatment of Indians—positions virtually unheard of in his day. Stevens was born in poverty, but rose to become possibly the most powerful man in America. Frustrated and even bitter, Stevens died in 1868 having done much for African Americans but having made few friends. He is buried in a small cemetery on Mulberry Street in Lancaster; the only one he could find that did not racially discriminate. He wrote his own epitaph."

"Thaddeus Stevens, that great fighter for human freedom, was an uncompromising Abolitionist. The slaveowners and bankers of his time called him a revolutionist. Deeply interested in education, he started the first vocational training school for boys, in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. He helped establish the free public school system in Pennsylvania, and fought for equal educational opportunities for the Negro people. His championship of social as well as political equality for Negroes was the real reason for the family's disapproval of him."

"When Chase, Summer, Stevens, and Wilson talk to the negro of the importance of having the franchise, and stop short of giving the franchise to woman, I proclaim them hypocrites—I proclaim them politicians. They speak so to the newly freed slave, because he has already the ballot in his hands, and they want him to vote for them. We have not that right, and hence they do not speak one word in favor of our attaining the elective franchise."

"After the Civil War, Representative Thaddeus Stevens, a Radical Republican, urged the federal government to seize the estates of wealthy former Confederates and use them in part to provide freedmen with some small compensation for centuries of forced labor. Stevens warned that without economic empowerment, freedmen would eventually find themselves at the mercy of their former masters. "It is impossible that any practical equality of rights can exist where a few thousand men monopolize the whole landed property," Stevens wrote in 1865. "The whole fabric of Southern society must be changed, and never can it be done if this opportunity is lost. Without this, this government can never be, as it never has been, a true republic"...Thaddeus Stevens knew that without sufficient economic power, civic equality becomes difficult to maintain. His insight has proved remarkably durable across American history. The question now is whether a new coalition, radicalized by racism, can defy that history."

"During the Civil War, one of the nation's leading abolitionists was Republican Senator Henry Wilson, of Massachusetts, who would later serve as vice president during President Grant's second term. In December 1861, Mr. Wilson introduced a bill to abolish slavery in the District. The measure met with parliamentary obstacles from the adamantly pro-slavery Democratic Party, whom Republicans in those days referred to as the 'Slave-ocrats'. Most Democrats in Congress having resigned in order to join the Confederate rebellion, Wilson's measure sailed through the Senate. The abolitionist senator responsible for outmaneuvering Democrat opposition was Ben Wade, the Ohio Republican who six years later would have assumed the presidency had the bitterly racist Democratic President, Andrew Johnson, been convicted during his impeachment trial. In the House of Representatives, Democrats delayed passage with a series of stalling tactics. Finally, the majority leader, Thaddeus Stevens, bulldozed over Democrat opposition by calling the House into a committee of the whole. He stopped all other business in the House until Democrats relented and allowed a vote on the bill. Stevens, of Pennsylvania, is best known for his 'forty acres and a mule' proposal. Overall, 99 percent of Republicans in Congress voted to free the slaves in the District of Columbia, and 83 percent of Democrats voted to keep them in chains."

"Thaddeus Stevens, not only did he oppose all things Democrat, he was one of the greatest Republicans who ever lived."

"The indispensable first step to getting the things you want out of life is this: decide what you want."

"For any exam in history, here is the answer: all human history is the struggle between systems that attempt to shackle the human personality in the name of some intangible good on the one hand and systems that enable and expand the scope of human personality in the pursuit of extremely tangible aims. The American system is the most successful in the world because it harmonizes best with the aims and longings of human personality while allowing the best protection to other personalities."

"A few truths, for those who have ears and eyes and care to know the truth: 1.) The hurricane that hit New Orleans and Mississippi and Alabama was an astonishing tragedy. The suffering and loss of life and peace of mind of the residents of those areas is acutely horrifying. 2.) George Bush did not cause the hurricane. Hurricanes have been happening for eons. George Bush did not create them or unleash this one. 3.) George Bush did not make this one worse than others. There have been far worse hurricanes than this before George Bush was born."

"I hope it won’t come as a surprise to anyone that a big part of male homosexual behavior is interest in young boys."

"In today’s world, at least in America, an Einstein or a Newton or a Galileo would probably not be allowed to receive grants to study or to publish his research. They cannot even mention the possibility that–as Newton or Galileo believed–these laws were created by God or a higher being. They could get fired, lose tenure, have their grants cut off. This can happen. It has happened."

"Darwinism is still very much alive, utterly dominating biology. Despite the fact that no one has ever been able to prove the creation of a single distinct species by Darwinist means, Darwinism dominates the academy and the media."

"[The] Third (problem with Darwinism), which I think is overwhelming, and just sort of blows the whole theory of Random Mutation out of the water, is, at least, let me say, raises big questions, that is. Assuming it all did happen by Random Mutation and Natural Selection, where did the laws of gravity come from. Where did the laws of thermodynamics come from? Where did the laws of motion and, of heat come from? Where, I guess that's the same as thermodynamics. Where did all these laws, that make it possible for the universe to function, where did they all come from? Why isn't all just chaos and everything collapsing in on itself and killing everything?"

"Neo-Darwinists ask us to believe in things not seen. We’re not supposed to have an established religion in America, but we do, and it’s called Darwinism."

"Evolutionism, as taught by Darwinism, has nothing - nothing - to say about how life originated. Has nothing to say about how the governing principles in the universe - gravity, thermodynamics, motion, fluid motion - how any of those originated. It's...it's got some gigantic missing pieces."

"We believe that Darwinism is the real Orthodox Church, because Darwinism asks you to believe in things unseen that are incredibly unlikely. Darwinism asks us to believe that out of pure random chance, we got a cell that is as complicated as a Boeing 777. Darwinism asks us to believe that one day there was nothing but mud and ooze, and the next day there was life, and very soon after there was intelligent life. Darwinism asks us to believe that you can destroy genetic material through random mutation and natural selection and yet end up with more genetic material. We don't really ask you to believe anything that difficult; it is sort of innate in mankind to believe that there is a God, a heavenly Father and we're asking you to just follow the consequences of that and see if possibly there could be some scientific validity to that."

"Humans are alive, therefore life must be complex."

"My feeling is that Darwinism is only at best a partial solution, and an extremely dangerous partial solution. I would say, based on the little I know, Darwinism explains microevolution within species quite well. As to its broader consequence and implications, I don't think it explains individual species evolution at all well."

"And for me, it's pretty clear-cut that until we learn some better explanation for how life began, there is a God who always existed and created the heavens and the earth. And until somebody gives me a better explanation, I'll go for it. And it doesn't scare me at all when scientists say, "Oh, but that can't be proved," because neither can any of the Darwinian hypotheses about how life began be proved. Anyway, I couldn't give a [profanity] whether a person calls himself a scientist. It doesn't earn any extra respect from me, because it's not as if science has covered itself with glory, morally, in my time. Scientists were the people in Germany telling Hitler that it was a good idea to kill all the Jews. Scientists were telling Stalin it was a good idea to wipe out the middle-class peasants. Scientists were telling Mao Tse-Tung it was fine to kill 50 million people in order to further the revolution."

"I'm still not that familiar with it [Intelligent Design]. I'm more familiar with it than most people, but nowhere near as familiar with it as a genuine expert in the subject. I don't pretend to be a scientist. I'm the person who moderates the discussion between and among the scientists."

"[I did] Some [reading to prep for Expelled]. I read one book cover to cover, From Darwin to Hitler, and that was a very interesting book--one of these rare books I wish had been even longer. It's about how Darwin's theory--supposedly concocted by this mild-mannered saintly man, with a flowing white beard like Santa Claus--led to the murder of millions of innocent people."

"Yes, it [making Expelled] has made my belief in that [Intelligent Design] much stronger. It has pointed out something which haunted me ever since I learned about Darwinism, which is, Where did it all start? How did life start? Darwinism has nothing to say about that--nothing useful, anyway--but I think Intelligent Design has a great deal to say about it."

"I went in thinking: "I'm not going to find out that Darwinism is a fraud. I'll probably find out these (intelligent design proponents) are frauds." But I wound up knowing a lot more than when I started. I learned that Darwinism is being overhyped, and that it doesn't really convey what's going on. Sometimes if you follow a "truth" far enough, it becomes a lie."

"And there hasn't been much progress in Darwinism since [the life of Darwin]."

"Well, the first cause is not...it's lightning striking a mud puddle. See, and this is what the evolutionists say. And by the way, they may be right -- you know, I'm not a scientist, they could be right."

"But when I talk to people who are Darwinists or evolutionists and say, 'Well, how did life begin' -- they're...they don't have an answer. I mean, they have an answer, but it's a BS answer. It's an answer that wouldn't make sense to a small child."

"Yes, [I spent] two long years, traveling all over the United States, all over Europe, interviewing many, many, many people who had been thrown out of their academic jobs because they taught that there was a possibility of life coming from something other than Darwinism, who thought that possibly random selection and mutations didn't account for the universe, didn't account for gravity, didn't account for why nobody had ever seen an individual species evolve -- no one's ever seen an individual species evolve!""

"The scientific community says that if you even mention God as causes of anything scientific, you're gone."

"You can only say Darwinian causes -- random mutation, natural selection -- even gravity is supposed to be done by that! And I would say to these people, well, how did life begin? We don't know, but it had to be by Darwinian means. Well, how did gravity begin? We don't know, but it had to be by Darwinian means. Why did it have to be that way? Why couldn't there have been an intelligent designer?"

"Love of God and compassion and empathy leads you to a very glorious place- science leads you to killing people."

"When we just saw that man, I think it was Mr. Myers, talking about how great scientists were, I was thinking to myself the last time any of my relatives saw scientists telling them what to do they were telling them to go to the showers to get gassed … that was horrifying beyond words, and that’s where science — in my opinion, this is just an opinion — that’s where science leads you."

"There's no evidence whatsoever that Darwin had anything useful to say or anything to say period about how life began or how the universe began or how gravity began or how physics began or fluid motion or how thermodynamics began. He had nothing to say about that whatsoever."

"God bless the devout Christians of this country. They are Israel's best friends on the earth."

"In life, events tend to follow patterns. People who commit crimes tend to be criminals, for example. Can anyone tell me any economists who have been convicted of violent sex crimes? Can anyone tell me of any heads of nonprofit international economic entities who have ever been charged and convicted of violent sexual crimes? Is it likely that just by chance this hotel maid found the only one in this category?"

"The prosecutors say that Mr. Strauss-Kahn "forced" the complainant to have oral and other sex with him. How? Did he have a gun? Did he have a knife? He's a short fat old man."

"OK, Peter writes, "Should I be worried about in terms of liquidity and get my money out of there?" No, no, no! Bear Stearns is fine. Do not take your money— this is ridi— if there's one takeaway other than a +400 so Bear— Bear Stearns is not in trouble. If anything, they're more likely to be taken over. Don't move your money from Bear! That's just being silly! Don't be silly."

"Go cry to your mother."

"Apple is becoming the JC Penney of tech. I think that there is a sense that the company is in a tailspin, and it doesn't seem to matter what they do right now. … Whatever product that is coming out in September is a clear loser. We haven't seen it yet, but it is a loser."

"A King, by disallowing Acts of this salutary nature, from being the father of his people, degenerated into a Tyrant and forfeits all rights to his subjects' obedience."

"Caesar had his Brutus, Charles the First his Cromwell; and George the Third — ["Treason!" cried the Speaker] — may profit by their example. If this be treason, make the most of it."

"The distinctions between Virginians, Pennsylvanians, New Yorkers and New Englanders are no more. I am not a Virginian, but an American."

"It is not a little Surprising that Christianity, whose chief excellence consists of softening the human heart, in cherishing and improving its finer Feelings, should encourage a Practice so totally repugnant to the first Impression of Right and Wrong. What adds to the wonder is that this Abominable Practice has been introduced in the most enlightened Ages."

"I shall honour the Quakers for their noble Effort to abolish Slavery. It is equally calculated to promote moral & political Good."

"I will not, I cannot justify it."

"I believe a time will come when an opportunity will be offered to abolish this lamentable evil. Everything we do is to improve it, if it happens in our day; if not, let us transmit to our descendants, together with our slaves, a pity for their unhappy lot and an abhorrence of slavery."

"Give me liberty, or give me death!"

"Suspicion is a virtue as long as its object is the public good, and as long as it stays within proper bounds. … Guard with jealous attention the public liberty. Suspect every one who approaches that jewel."

"Show me that age and country where the rights and liberties of the people were placed on the sole chance of their rulers being good men, without a consequent loss of liberty?"

"Let Mr. Madison tell me when did liberty ever exist when the sword and the purse were given up from the people? Unless a miracle shall interpose, no nation ever did, nor ever can retain its liberty after the loss of the sword and the purse."

"When the American spirit was in its youth, the language of America was different: Liberty, Sir, was then the primary object."

"Are we at last brought to such an humiliating and debasing degradation, that we cannot be trusted with arms for our defense? Where is the difference between having our arms in possession and under our direction, and having them under the management of Congress? If our defense be the real object of having those arms, in whose hands can they be trusted with more propriety or equal safety to us, as in our own hands?"

"The liberties of a people never were, nor ever will be, secure, when the transactions of their rulers may be concealed from them."

"The great object is that every man be armed… Everyone who is able may have a gun."

"With respect to that part of the proposal which says that every power not granted remains with the people, it must be previous to adoption, or it will involve this country in inevitable destruction. To talk of it as a thing subsequent, not as one of your unalienable rights, is leaving it to the casual opinion of the Congress who shall take up the consideration of that matter. They will not reason with you about the effect of this Constitution. They will not take the opinion of this committee concerning its operation. They will construe it as they please. If you place it subsequently, let me ask the consequences. Among ten thousand implied powers which they may assume, they may, if we be engaged in war, liberate every one of your slaves if they please. And this must and will be done by men, a majority of whom have not a common interest with you. They will, therefore, have no feeling of your interests. It has been repeatedly said here, that the great object of a national government was national defence. That power which is said to be intended for security and safety may be rendered detestable and oppressive. If they give power to the general government to provide for the general defence, the means must be commensurate to the end. All the means in the possession of the people must be given to the government which is intrusted with the public defence. In this state there are two hundred and thirty-six thousand blacks, and there are many in several other states. But there are few or none in the Northern States; and yet, if the Northern States shall be of opinion that our slaves are numberless, they may call forth every national resource. May Congress not say, that every black man must fight? Did we not see a little of this last war? We were not so hard pushed as to make emancipation general; but acts of Assembly passed that every slave who would go to the army should be free. Another thing will contribute to bring this event about. Slavery is detested. We feel its fatal effects—we deplore it with all the pity of humanity. Let all these considerations, at some future period, press with full force on the minds of Congress. Let that urbanity, which I trust will distinguish America, and the necessity of national defence,—let all these things operate on their minds; they will search that paper, and see if they have power of manumission. And have they not, sir? Have they not power to provide for the general defence and welfare? May they not think that these call for the abolition of slavery? May they not pronounce all slaves free, and will they not be warranted by that power? This is no ambiguous implication or logical deduction. The paper speaks to the point: they have the power in clear, unequivocal terms, and will clearly and certainly exercise it. As much as I deplore slavery, I see that prudence forbids its abolition. I deny that the general government ought to set them free, because a decided majority of the states have not the ties of sympathy and fellow-feeling for those whose interest would be affected by their emancipation. The majority of Congress is to the north, and the slaves are to the south."

"In this situation, I see a great deal of the property of the people of Virginia in jeopardy, and their peace and tranquillity gone. I repeat it again, that it would rejoice my very soul that every one of my fellow-beings was emancipated. As we ought with gratitude to admire that decree of Heaven which has numbered us among the free, we ought to lament and deplore the necessity of holding our fellowmen in bondage. But is it practicable, by any human means, to liberate them without producing the most dreadful and ruinous consequences? We ought to possess them in the manner we inherited them from our ancestors, as their manumission is incompatible with the felicity of our country. But we ought to soften, as much as possible, the rigor of their unhappy fate. I know that, in a variety of particular instances, the legislature, listening to complaints, have admitted their emancipation. Let me not dwell on this subject. I will only add that this, as well as every other property of the people of Virginia, is in jeopardy, and put in the hands of those who have no similarity of situation with us. This is a local matter, and I can see no propriety in subjecting it to Congress."

"With respect to subsequent amendments, proposed by the worthy member, I am distressed when I hear the expression. It is a new one altogether, and such a one as stands against every idea of fortitude and manliness in the states, or any one else. Evils admitted in order to be removed subsequently, and tyranny submitted to in order to be excluded by a subsequent alteration, are things totally new to me. . . . I ask, does experience warrant such a thing from the beginning of the world to this day? Do you enter into a compact first, and afterwards settle the terms of the government?"

"If she chuses to set free one or two of my slaves she is to have full power to do so."

"This is all the inheritance I can give to my dear family. The religion of Christ can give them one which will make them rich indeed."

"Let us trust God and our better judgment to set us right hereafter. United we stand, divided we fall. Let us not split into factions which must destroy that union upon which our existence hangs. Let us preserve our strength for the French, the English, the Germans, or whoever else shall dare invade our territory, and not exhaust it in civil commotions and intestine wars."

"The question before the House is one of awful moment to this country. For my own part, I consider it as nothing less than a question of freedom or slavery; and in proportion to the magnitude of the subject ought to be the freedom of the debate. It is only in this way that we can hope to arrive at truth, and fulfill the great responsibility which we hold to God and our country. Should I keep back my opinions at such a time, through fear of giving offense, I should consider myself as guilty of treason towards my country, and of an act of disloyalty toward the Majesty of Heaven, which I revere above all earthly kings."

"It is natural for man to indulge in the illusions of hope and pride. We are apt to shut our eyes against a painful truth, and listen to the song of that siren till she transforms us into beasts. Is this the part of wise men, engaged in a great and arduous struggle for liberty? Are we disposed to be the number of those who, having eyes, see not, and having ears, hear not, the things which so nearly concern their temporal salvation? For my part, whatever anguish of spirit it may cost, I am willing to know the whole truth; to know the worst, and to provide for it."

"I have but one lamp by which my feet are guided, and that is the lamp of experience. I know no way of judging of the future but by the past."

"Are fleets and armies necessary to a work of love and reconciliation? Have we shown ourselves so unwilling to be reconciled that force must be called in to win back our love? Let us not deceive ourselves, sir. These are the implements of war and subjugation; the last arguments to which kings resort."

"There is no longer any room for hope. If we wish to be free—if we mean to preserve inviolate those inestimable privileges for which we have been so long contending—if we mean not basely to abandon the noble struggle in which we have been so long engaged, and which we have pledged ourselves never to abandon until the glorious object of our contest shall be obtained—we must fight! I repeat it, sir, we must fight! An appeal to arms and to the God of hosts is all that is left us!"

"They tell us, sir, that we are weak; unable to cope with so formidable an adversary. But when shall we be stronger? Will it be the next week, or the next year? Will it be when we are totally disarmed, and when a British guard shall be stationed in every house? Shall we gather strength by irresolution and inaction? Shall we acquire the means of effectual resistance by lying supinely on our backs and hugging the delusive phantom of hope, until our enemies shall have bound us hand and foot? Sir, we are not weak if we make a proper use of those means which the God of nature hath placed in our power. Three millions of people, armed in the holy cause of Liberty, and in such a country as that which we possess, are invincible by any force which our enemy can send against us. Besides, sir, we shall not fight our battles alone. There is a just God who presides over the destinies of nations, and who will raise up friends to fight our battles for us. The battle, sir, is not to the strong alone; it is to the vigilant, the active, the brave."

"Besides, sir, we have no election. If we were base enough to desire it, it is now too late to retire from the contest. There is no retreat but in submission and slavery! Our chains are forged! Their clanking may be heard on the plains of Boston! The war is inevitable—and let it come! I repeat it, sir, let it come."

"It is vain, sir, to extenuate the matter. Gentlemen may cry, Peace, peace! But there is no peace. The war is actually begun! The next gale that sweeps from the north will bring to our ears the clash of resounding arms! Our brethren are already in the field! Why stand we here idle? What is it that gentlemen wish? What would they have? Is life so dear or peace so sweet as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!"

"That religion, or the duty which we owe to our Creator, and the manner of discharging it, can be directed only by reason and conviction, not by force or violence; and therefore all men are equally entitled to the free exercise of religion, according to the dictates of conscience; and that it is the mutual duty of all to practice Christian forbearance, love, and charity towards each other."

"There is an insidious campaign of false propaganda being waged today, to the effect that our country is not a Christian country but a religious one—that it was not founded on Christianity but on freedom of religion. It cannot be emphasized too clearly and too often that this nation was founded, not by "religionists", but by Christians—not on religion, but on the Gospel of Jesus Christ. For this very reason, peoples of other faiths have been afforded asylum, prosperity, and freedom of worship here."

"The Constitution is not an instrument for the government to restrain the people, it is an instrument for the people to restrain the government — lest it come to dominate our lives and interests."

"We should not forget that the spark which ignited the American Revolution was caused by the British attempt to confiscate the firearms of the colonists."

"One of his neighbors going to see him found him reading the Bible. Holding it up in his hand, he said: "This book is worth all the books that ever were printed, and it has been my misfortune that I have never found time to read it with the proper attention and feeling till lately. I trust in the mercy of Heaven that it is not yet too late.""

"While new American leaders such as George Washington, Patrick Henry, and Benjamin Franklin studied the Haudenosaunee government, they also engaged in land speculation over territory held by these peoples, and Mohawk lands were ceded through force, coercion, and deceit until fewer than 14,600 acres remained in New York State."

"Patrick Henry was an inveterate and voracious engrosser of land lying beyond the deadline set by the British State [i.e., the Royal Proclamation of 1763 which prohibited English colonists from settling west of the Appalachian Mountains]; later he was heavily involved in the affairs of one of the notorious Yazoo companies, operating in Georgia. He seems to have been most unscrupulous. His company's holdings in Georgia, amounting to more than ten million acres, were to be paid for in Georgia scrip, which was much depreciated. Henry bought up all these certificates that he could get his hands on, at ten cents on the dollar, and made a great profit on them by their rise in value when Hamilton put through his measure for having the central government assume the debts they represented. Undoubtedly it was this trait of unrestrained avarice which earned him the dislike of Mr. Jefferson, who said, rather contemptuously, that he was "insatiable in money.""

"Samuel Davies was one of the most influential of all 18th century Virginians, in that his legal preaching gave increasing credibility to Presbyterians throughout all of central Virginia. He was an impassioned orator, often addressing outdoor congregations that numbered hundreds of souls. Patrick Henry's mother regularly brought her young son to Hanover County's Polegreen Meetinghouse to hear Davis' sermons. Nearly all of Henry's biographers mention Samuel Davies as a prominent influence on this young man's oratorical development, which was something which Henry also admitted shortly before his death, crediting this preacher with "teaching me what an orator should be.""

"As the 18th century progressed toward revolution in the Virginia Commonwealth, the language of freedom and individual rights had appealing religious meanings for the audiences of Samuel Davies and appealing political meanings for the audiences of Patrick Henry."

"When this country here was first being founded there were 13 colonies. The whites were colonized. They were fed up with this taxation without representation, so some of them stood up and said “Liberty or death.” Though I went to a white school over here in Mason, Michigan, the white man made the mistake of letting me read his history books. He made the mistake of teaching me that Patrick Henry was a patriot, and George Washington -- wasn’t nothing nonviolent about old Pat or George Washington. “Liberty or death” was what brought about the freedom of whites in this country from the English. They didn't care about the odds. Why they faced the wrath of the entire British Empire. And in those days they used to say that the British Empire was so vast and so powerful when the sun would never set on them. This is how big it was, yet these 13 little, scrawny states, tired of taxation without representation, tired of being exploited and oppressed and degraded, told that big British Empire “Liberty or death.” And here you have 22 million Afro-American black people today catching more hell than Patrick Henry ever saw. And I'm here to tell you, in case you don't know it, that you got a new generation of black people in this country who don't care anything whatsoever about odds. They don't want to hear you old Uncle Tom handkerchief heads talking about the odds. No. This is a new generation. If they're gonna draft these young black men and send them over to Korea or South Vietnam to face 800 million Chinese — if you're not afraid of those odds, you shouldn't be afraid of these odds."

"A right is not what someone gives you; it's what no one can take from you."

"The measure of your quality as a public person, as a citizen, is the gap between what you do and what you say."

"There are few better measures of the concern a society has for its individual members and its own well being than the way it handles criminals."

"A great many people in this country are worried about law-and-order. And a great many people are worried about justice. But one thing is certain: You cannot have either until you have both."

"The consistent underlying psychology of the United States, which has held the lead in nuclear war capability and capacity throughout these 40 [now 75] years, should be understandable to anyone who has ever known a violent neighborhood bully. The government of Americans means to have its way through the use and threatened to use of superior force. It will lie. It will deceive. It will kill. It will escalate the threat and use of force to the highest level it dares. It will bluff, dangerous as that can be. It will do whatever is must to dominate. It does this in the face of the fact that its very preparation for a nuclear war may destroy all life. American war planners busily devised strategies for crippling the Soviet Union with revealing names like BROILER, FROLIC, SIZZLE, SHAKEDOWN, DROPSHOT, and VULTURE. The number of Soviet targets to be destroyed grew in number from 20 cities in December 1945 to 200 cities in 1949 and to 3261 total targets by 1957. The number of times the use of nuclear weapons has been contemplated by Americans is unbearable."

"What is to be said of leaders with the mental acuity and moral perceptions revealed by these disclosed words and deeds? They are at best enemies of life without understanding. Psychologically, they disconnect all feeling for the beauty of the planet — a rose, an impala in motion, a baby’s hand, a Confucian analect, a Bach cantata, a parable of Jesus, pilgrims bathing in the Ganges, a crowd watching a soccer game in Rio, the subway in Moscow, the skyline in Manhattan. They cannot think or feel about the human meaning of what they do.,, A single Trident II submarine can inflict more death than all prior wars in history. Twenty-four missiles, launched while submerged, each with seventeen independently targeted, maneuverable nuclear warheads five times more powerful than the atom bomb that destroyed Nagasaki, can travel 5,000 nautical miles to strike within 300 feet of 408 predetermined targets. Nuclear winter might follow even if no other weapons are used. No nation or individual can be permitted to possess the power to destroy the world. An imperative need is for an informed and active public struggling for its right to survive. Public ignorance and apathy is “as much a concern for survival of the species as the unthinkable power to destroy the world wielded by a few men in a mindless manner”"

"American aggression had already created incalculable levels of “misery for the world”; that “the poor of the planet made poorer, dominated and exploited by the foreign policies of the U.S. and its rich allies;” that “the U.S. invasion of Iraq was a war of aggression, an offense called ‘the supreme international crime’ in the Nuremberg Judgment."

"You know, the Nuremberg Tribunal called the war of aggression the supreme international crime, and it is. And George W. Bush has waged a war of aggression against Iraq. He’s killed more than 100,000 people. Are their lives worth nothing? Can we have a moment of silence in memory of all the people who have died in Iraq because of the criminal acts of George W. Bush in waging this war of aggression? Every moment of their lives is fraught with danger right now because of us. The world is the most dangerous place it’s ever been now because of what our country has done, and is doing, and we have to take it back. We can’t wait four more years. There can’t be any more Fallujahs. Fallujah is the 21st century equivalent of Guernica. We just went in and destroyed that city, drove the people out, killed them, thousands. We don’t know how many. They won’t even bother to count who’s been killed or how many, or estimate how many. They just keep killing. Almost every day we’re reading about another checkpoint where some family got wiped out because they didn’t do what they were supposed to do, according to the military there."

"Abu Ghraib is unbelievable in the innocent times of 1961, that we would torture people that way, and on the instructions of the president of the United States and his highest legal advisers. “Torture is OK,” they said. “Go for it, fellas.” If we can’t renounce that and remove it from office, then the Constitution doesn’t work anymore... We’ve got to do more than take back the Constitution. There has to be accountability for what’s happened. The Constitution says that the president, vice president and other officials of the United States shall be removed from office upon impeachment for and conviction of high crimes and misdemeanors.... If you care about the Constitution, you better start talking to your member of the House of Representatives and say impeachment now is essential to the integrity of the United States government and to the future of the United States. We’ve had more than 500,000 people sign on “Vote to Impeach.” We need to get 5 million, and we need to get 5 million on there quick. And then the Congress will react."

"The world is the most dangerous place it's ever been now because of what our country has done, and is doing, and we have to take it back."

"There can't be any more Fallujahs. Fallujah is the 21st century equivalent of Guernica. We just went in and destroyed that city, drove the people out, killed them, thousands. We don't know how many."

"He (Saddam) had this huge war going on, and you have to act firmly when you have an assassination attempt."

"I think we're destroying higher education by making it high-tech rather than high-humanity. What we need to do is realize that we now have the capacity to produce more than we need with fewer and fewer people working at it. We need to spend more time on the humanitarian side of how we live together in peace, how we learn to love each other, how we benefit from studying different cultures and different histories, and enriching ourselves as individuals that way, rather than just pressing for money and fame... It's a dead-end road that will destroy us. We don't need all those jobs, you know. We need to build a public throughout the world that has a better understanding of fundamental values, and history, and culture, and not in high-tech manufacturing of unnecessary necessities."

"Ramsey Clark, who championed civil rights and liberties as attorney general in the Johnson administration, then devoted much of the rest of his life to defending unpopular causes... died on Friday at his home in Manhattan. He was 93... Mr. Clark... shunned a government limousine in favor of his own beat-up Oldsmobile, set an ambitiously liberal course as attorney general.. He filed the first lawsuit to force a school district — Dale County, Ala. — to desegregate or else lose its federal school aid. He went on to file the first voting rights and school desegregation suits in the North.... He oversaw the drafting of the landmark Civil Rights Act of 1968 — better known as the Fair Housing Act — which addressed housing discrimination... Mr. Clark went into private legal practice and soon devoted more and more of his time to representing the disadvantaged and the unpopular, including Alaskan Natives, war resisters, rioters at the Attica prison in New York State and Lyndon LaRouche... In 1972...Mr. Clark... publicly criticized American conduct of the [Vietnam] war. ... In 2011, he condemned NATO’s bombing campaign against Qaddafi’s government. In 2013, he said Iran had no intention of building a nuclear bomb and denounced sanctions against that country. Later, he protested lethal attacks by unmanned American drone aircraft on other nations... In 2008, the United Nations General Assembly awarded Mr. Clark its Prize in the Field of Human Rights, which it gives every five years to human rights defenders."

"Mr. Clark often told voters what they did not want to hear. He advocated gun control legislation in speeches to hunters and told defense industry workers that their plants should be closed... Mr. Clark was the author or co-author of several books, including “The Fire This Time: U.S. War Crimes in the Gulf” (1992) and “The Torturer in the Mirror” (2010)... He was also one of the most quotable public figures of his generation, many of his pronouncements tending toward aphoris.."

"It is likely that well before Clark took his bizarre positions in support of highly repressive, violent, and intolerant political systems and their leaders, he came to the conclusion that the United States was the most dangerous and reprehensible source of evil in the world. This overarching belief led to the reflexive sympathy and support for all the enemies and alleged victims of the United States. They include dictators of different ideological persuasion noted above, whose inhumane qualities and policies Clark was unable to discern or acknowledge, let alone condemn. It was sufficient for Clark's moral accounting that if these dictators were opposed to (and allegedly victimized by) the United States, they deserved and earned his sympathy.""

"This case, involving legal requirements for the content and labeling of meat products such as frankfurters, affords a rare opportunity to explore simultaneously both parts of Bismarck's aphorism that 'No man should see how laws or sausages are made.'"

"I define speech as any communicative activity. [Can it be nonverbal?] Yes. [Can it be nonverbal and also not written?] Yes. [Can it encompass physical actions?] Yes. Watt [Community for Creative Non-Violence v. Watt, 703 F.2d 586 (1983)] was a case in which what was at issue was sleeping as communicative activity. What I said was that for purposes of the heightened protections that are accorded, sleeping could not be speech. That is to say, I did not say that one could prohibit sleeping merely for the purpose of eliminating the communicative aspect of sleeping, if there is any . . . [and] I did not say that the Government could seek to prohibit that communication without running afoul of the heightened standards of the first amendment. If they passed a law that allows all other sleeping but only prohibits sleeping where it is intended to communicate, then it would be invalidated. But what I did say was, where you have a general law that just applies to an activity which in itself is normally not communicative, such as sleeping, spitting, whatever you like; clenching your fist, for example; such a law would not be subject to the heightened standards of the first amendment. That is to say, if there is ordinary justification for it, it is fine. It does not have to meet the high need, the no other available alternative requirements of the first amendment. Whereas, when you are dealing with communicative activity, naturally communicative activity—writing, speech, and so forth— any law, even if it is general, across the board, has to meet those higher standards."

"In law school, I never understood [antitrust law]. I later found out, in reading the writings of those who now do understand it, that I should not have understood it because it did not make any sense then."

"Frequently an issue of this sort will come before the Court clad, so to speak, in sheep's clothing: the potential of the asserted principle to effect important change in the equilibrium of power is not immediately evident, and must be discerned by a careful and perceptive analysis. But this wolf comes as a wolf."

"Evidently, the governing standard is to be what might be called the unfettered wisdom of a majority of this Court, revealed to an obedient people on a case-by-case basis."

"How frightening it must be to have your own independent counsel and staff appointed, with nothing else to do but to investigate you until investigation is no longer worthwhile."

"Those who believe that racial preferences can help to 'even the score' display, and reinforce, a manner of thinking about race that was the source of the injustice and that will, if it endures within our society, be the source of more injustice still."

"Justice White's conclusion is perhaps correct, if one assumes that the task of a court of law is to plumb the intent of the particular Congress that enacted a particular provision. That methodology is not mine nor, I think, the one that courts have traditionally followed. It is our task, as I see it, not to enter the minds of the Members of Congress - who need have nothing in mind in order for their votes to be both lawful and effective - but rather to give fair and reasonable meaning to the text of the United States Code, adopted by various Congresses at various times."

"We reject the dissent's contention that our approach, by "largely return[ing] the task of defining the contours of Eighth Amendment protection to political majorities," leaves "‘[c]onstitutional doctrine [to] be formulated by the acts of those institutions which the Constitution is supposed to limit,'" [...] By reaching a decision supported neither by constitutional text nor by the demonstrable current standards of our citizens, the dissent displays a failure to appreciate that "those institutions which the Constitution is supposed to limit" include the Court itself. To say, as the dissent says, that "‘it is for us ultimately to judge whether the Eighth Amendment permits imposition of the death penalty,'" (quoting Enmund v. Florida) -- and to mean that as the dissent means it, i.e., that it is for us to judge, not on the basis of what we perceive the Eighth Amendment originally prohibited, or on the basis of what we perceive the society through its democratic processes now overwhelmingly disapproves, but on the basis of what we think "proportionate" and "measurably contributory to acceptable goals of punishment" -- to say and mean that, is to replace judges of the law with a committee of philosopher-kings."

"The outcome of today's case will doubtless be heralded as a triumph of judicial statesmanship. It is not that, unless it is statesmanlike needlessly to prolong this Court's self-awarded sovereignty over a field where it has little proper business, since the answers to most of the cruel questions posed are political, and not juridical -- a sovereignty which therefore quite properly, but to the great damage of the Court, makes it the object of the sort of organized public pressure that political institutions in a democracy ought to receive. […] Ordinarily, speaking no more broadly than is absolutely required avoids throwing settled law into confusion; doing so today preserves a chaos that is evident to anyone who can read and count. Alone sufficient to justify a broad holding is the fact that our retaining control, through Roe, of what I believe to be, and many of our citizens recognize to be, a political issue, continuously distorts the public perception of the role of this Court. We can now look forward to at least another Term with carts full of mail from the public, and streets full of demonstrators, urging us -- their unelected and life-tenured judges who have been awarded those extraordinary, undemocratic characteristics precisely in order that we might follow the law despite the popular will -- to follow the popular will. Indeed, I expect we can look forward to even more of that than before, given our indecisive decision today. […] It was an arguable question today whether [Section] 188.029 of the Missouri law contravened this Court’s understanding of Roe v. Wade, and I would have examined Roe rather than examining the contravention. […] Of the four courses we might have chosen today -- to reaffirm Roe, to overrule it explicitly, to overrule it sub silentio, or to avoid the question -- the last is the least responsible. On the question of the constitutionality of [Section] 188.029, I concur in the judgment of the Court and strongly dissent from the manner in which it has been reached."

"As I understand the various opinions today: One Justice holds that two-parent notification is unconstitutional (at least in present circumstances) without judicial bypass, but constitutional with bypass […]; four Justices would hold that two-parent notification is constitutional with or without bypass […]; four Justices would hold that two-parent notification is unconstitutional with or without bypass, though the four apply two different standards […]; six Justices hold that one-parent notification with bypass is constitutional, though for two different sets of reasons […]; and three Justices would hold that one-parent notification with bypass is unconstitutional […]. One will search in vain the document we are supposed to be construing for text that provides the basis for the argument over these distinctions and will find in our society’s tradition regarding abortion no hint that the distinctions are constitutionally relevant, much less any indication how a constitutional argument about them ought to be resolved. The random and unpredictable results of our consequently unchanneled individual views make it increasingly evident, Term after Term, that the tools for this job are not to be found in the lawyer’s – and hence not in the judges – workbox. I continue to dissent from this enterprise of devising an Abortion Code, and from the illusion that we have authority to do so."

"The Constitution contains no right to abortion. It is not to be found in the longstanding traditions of our society, nor can it be logically deduced from the text of the Constitution - not, that is, without volunteering a judicial answer to the nonjusticiable question of when human life begins. Leaving this matter to the political process is not only legally correct, it is pragmatically so. That alone - and not lawyerly dissection of federal judicial precedents - can produce compromises satisfying a sufficient mass of the electorate that this deeply felt issue will cease distorting the remainder of our democratic process. The Court should end its disruptive intrusion into this field as soon as possible."

"The point at which life becomes 'worthless,' and the point at which the means necessary to preserve it become 'extraordinary' or 'inappropriate,' are neither set forth in the Constitution nor known to the nine Justices of this Court any better than they are known to nine people picked at random from the Kansas City telephone directory...[therefore] even when it is demonstrated by clear and convincing evidence that a patient no longer wishes certain measures to be taken to preserve her life, it is up to the citizens of Missouri to decide, through their elected representatives, whether that wish will be honored."

"I am persuaded, therefore, that the Maryland procedure is virtually constitutional. Since it is not, however, actually constitutional, I would affirm the judgment of the Maryland Court of Appeals reversing the judgment of conviction."

"Today's extension of the Edwards prohibition is the latest stage of prophylaxis built upon prophylaxis, producing a veritable fairyland castle of imagined constitutional restriction upon law enforcement."

"The story is told of the elderly judge who, looking back over a long career, observes with satisfaction that, when I was young, I probably let stand some convictions that should have been overturned, and when I was old I probably set aside some that should have stood; so overall, justice was done. I sometimes think that is an appropriate analogy to this Court's constitutional jurisprudence, which alternately creates rights that the Constitution does not contain and denies rights that it does. Compare Roe v. Wade, 410 U.S. 113 (1973) (right to abortion does exist) with Maryland v. Craig, 497 U.S. 836 (1990) (right to be confronted with witnesses, U.S. Const., Amdt. 6, does not)."

"Perhaps the dissenters believe that 'offense to others' ought to be the only reason for restricting nudity in public places generally. . . . The purpose of Indiana's nudity law would be violated, I think, if 60,000 fully consenting adults crowded into the Hoosierdome to display their genitals to one another, even if there were not an offended innocent in the crowd."

"Life is too short to pursue every human act to its most remote consequences; "for want of a nail, a kingdom was lost" is a commentary on fate, not the statement of a major cause of action against a blacksmith."

"I think [that] '[t]he judicial Power of the United States' conferred upon this Court 'and such inferior courts as Congress may establish', must be deemed to be the judicial power as understood by our common-law tradition. That is the power 'to say what the law is', Marbury v. Madison, 1 Cranch 137, 177 (1803), not the power to change it."

"The Court's statement that it is 'tempting' to acknowledge the authoritativeness of tradition in order to 'curb the discretion of federal judges' is, of course, rhetoric rather than reality; no government official is 'tempted' to place restraints upon his own freedom of action, which is why Lord Acton did not say 'Power tends to purify.' The Court's temptation is in the quite opposite and more natural direction -- towards systematically eliminating checks upon its own power; and it succumbs."

"In Barnette, we held that a public school student could not be compelled to recite the Pledge; we did not even hint that she could not be compelled to observe respectful silence. . . . Logically, that ought to be the next target for the Court's bulldozer."

"I find it a sufficient embarrassment that our Establishment Clause jurisprudence regarding holiday displays has come to 'require[e] scrutiny more commonly associated with interior decorators than with the judiciary'. But interior decorating is a rock hard science compared to psychology practiced by amateurs."

"The Court's reliance upon stare decisis can best be described as contrived. It insists upon the necessity of adhering not to all of Roe, but only to what it calls the 'central holding.' It seems to me that stare decisis ought to be applied even to the doctrine of stare decisis, and I confess never to have heard of this new, keep-what-you-want-and-throw-away-the-rest version."

"I frankly doubt, moreover, whether the fiercely proud men who adopted our Fourth Amendment would have allowed themselves to be subjected, on mere suspicion of being armed and dangerous, to such indignity."

"As to the Court's invocation of the Lemon test: Like some ghoul in a late-night horror movie that repeatedly sits up in its grave and shuffles abroad, after being repeatedly killed and buried, Lemon stalks our Establishment Clause jurisprudence once again, frightening the little children and school attorneys of Center Moriches Union Free School District. Its most recent burial, only last Term, was, to be sure, not fully six feet under: Our decision in Lee v. Weisman conspicuously avoided using the supposed test but also declined the invitation to repudiate it. Over the years, however, no fewer than five of the currently sitting Justices have, in their own opinions, personally driven pencils through the creature's heart (the author of today's opinion repeatedly), and a sixth has joined an opinion doing so. The secret of the Lemon test's survival, I think, is that it is so easy to kill. It is there to scare us (and our audience) when we wish it to do so, but we can command it to return to the tomb at will. Such a docile and useful monster is worth keeping around, at least in a somnolent state; one never knows when one might need him."

"'Abusive' (or 'hostile,' which in this context I take to mean the same thing) does not seem to me a very clear standard - and I do not think clarity is at all increased by adding the adverb objectively or by appealing to a reasonable person's notion of what the vague word means."

"Justice Blackmun begins his statement [declaring Blackmun's opposition to capital punishment] by describing with poignancy the death of a convicted murderer by lethal injection. He chooses, as the case in which to make that statement, one of the less brutal of the murders that regularly come before us, the murder of a man ripped by a bullet suddenly and unexpectedly, with no opportunity to prepare himself and his affairs, and left to bleed to death on the floor of a tavern. The death-by-injection which Justice Blackmun describes looks pretty desirable next to that. It looks even better next to some of the other cases currently before us, which Justice Blackmun did not select as the vehicle for his announcement that the death penalty is always unconstitutional, for example, the case of the 11-year-old girl raped by four men and then killed by stuffing her panties down her throat. See McCollum v. North Carolina. How enviable a quiet death by lethal injection compared with that!"

"I have been willing, in the case of civil statutes, to acknowledge a doctrine of scrivener's error that permits a court to give an unusual (though not unheard of) meaning to a word which, if given its normal meaning, would produce an absurd and arguably unconstitutional result."

"The Court today finds that the Powers That Be, up in Albany, have conspired to effect an establishment of the Satmar Hasidim. I do not know who would be more surprised at this discovery: the Founders of our Nation or Grand Rebbe Joel Teitelbaum, founder of the Satmar. The Grand Rebbe would be astounded to learn that after escaping brutal persecution and coming to America with the modest hope of religious toleration for their ascetic form of Judaism, the Satmar had become so powerful, so closely allied with Mammon, as to have become an establishment of the Empire State. And the Founding Fathers would be astonished to find that the Establishment Clause — which they designed to insure that no one powerful sect or combination of sects could use political or governmental power to punish dissenters — has been employed to prohibit characteristically and admirably American accommodation of the religious practices (or more precisely, cultural peculiarities) of a tiny minority sect. I, however, am not surprised. Once this Court has abandoned text and history as guides, nothing prevents it from calling religious toleration the establishment of religion."

"Individuals who have been wronged by unlawful racial discrimination should be made whole; but under our Constitution there can be no such thing as either a creditor or a debtor race. That concept is alien to the Constitution's focus upon the individual . . . . To pursue the concept of racial entitlement - even for the most admirable and benign of purposes - is to reinforce and preserve for future mischief the way of thinking that produced race slavery, race privilege and race hatred. In the eyes of government, we are just one race here. It is American."

"Words do have a limited range of meaning, and no interpretation that goes beyond that range is permissible."

"The Court has mistaken a Kulturkampf for a fit of spite. The constitutional amendment before us here is not the manifestation of a "'bare ... desire to harm' " homosexuals, ante, at 634, but is rather a modest attempt by seemingly tolerant Coloradans to preserve traditional sexual mores against the efforts of a politically powerful minority to revise those mores through use of the laws. That objective, and the means chosen to achieve it, are not only unimpeachable under any constitutional doctrine hitherto pronounced (hence the opinion's heavy reliance upon principles of righteousness rather than judicial holdings); they have been specifically approved by the Congress of the United States and by this Court. In holding that homosexuality cannot be singled out for disfavorable treatment, the Court contradicts a decision, unchallenged here, pronounced only 10 years ago, see Bowers v. Hardwick, 478 U. S. 186 (1986), and places the prestige of this institution behind the proposition that opposition to homosexuality is as reprehensible as racial or religious bias. Whether it is or not is precisely the cultural debate that gave rise to the Colorado constitutional amendment (and to the preferential laws against which the amendment was directed.) Since the Constitution of the United States says nothing about this subject, it is left to be resolved by normal democratic means, including the democratic adoption of provisions in state constitutions. This Court has no business imposing upon all Americans the resolution favored by the elite class from which the Members of this institution are selected, pronouncing that "animosity" toward homosexuality, ante, at 634, is evil. I vigorously dissent."

"It is one of the unhappy incidents of the federal system that a self-righteous Supreme Court, acting on its Members' personal view of what would make a 'more perfect Union' (a criterion only slightly more restrictive than a 'more perfect world') can impose its own favored social and economic dispositions nationwide."

"It is hard to consider women a 'discrete and insular minority', unable to employ the 'political processes ordinarily to be relied upon' when they constitute a majority of the electorate. And the suggestion that they are incapable of exerting that political power smacks of the same paternalism that the Court so roundly condemns."

"The tradition of having government-funded military schools for men is as well rooted in the traditions of this country as the tradition of sending only men into military combat. The people may decide to change the one tradition, like the other, through democratic processes; but the assertion that either tradition has been unconstitutional through the centuries is not law, but politics-smuggled-into-law."

"What secret knowledge, one must wonder, is breathed into lawyers when they become Justices of this Court, that enables them to discern that a practice which the text of the Constitution does not clearly proscribe, and which our people have regarded as constitutional for 200 years, is in fact unconstitutional? […] The Court must be living in another world. Day by day, case by case, it is busy designing a Constitution for a country I do not recognize."

"I respectfully, and indeed diffidently, dissent."

"Bork has essentially given up. I'm not ready to throw in the towel."

"I'm not going to rip all that up. It's water over the dam. The people have gotten used to it. You know, that's what Stare Decisis is all about. In other words, I am an originalist. I am a textualist. I am not a nut."

"Textualism should not be confused with so-called strict constructionism, which is a degraded form of textualism that brings the whole philosophy into disrepute. I am not a strict constructionist, and no one ought to be--though better that, I suppose, than a nontextualist. A text should not be construed strictly, and it should not be construed leniently; it should be construed reasonably, to contain all that it fairly means."

"If to state this case is not to decide it, the law has departed further from the meaning of language than is appropriate for a government that is supposed to rule (and to be restrained) through the written word."

"Avant-garde artistes such as respondents remain entirely free to épater les bourgeois [shock the middle classes]; they are merely deprived of the additional satisfaction of having the bourgeoisie taxed to pay for it. It is preposterous to equate the denial of taxpayer subsidy with measures 'aimed at the suppression of dangerous ideas.'"

"'The operation was a success, but the patient died.' What such a procedure is to medicine, the Court's opinion in this case is to law."

"Legislative flexibility on the part of Congress will be the touchstone of federalism when the capacity to support combustion becomes the acid test of a fire extinguisher. Congressional flexibility is desirable, of course - but only within the bounds of federal power established by the Constitution. Beyond those bounds (the theory of our Constitution goes), it is a menace."

"In my view, a right of parents to direct the upbringing of their children is among the 'unalienable Rights' with which the Declaration of Independence proclaims 'all Men . . . are endowed by their Creator.'"

"What today's decision will stand for, whether the Justices can bring themselves to say it or not, is the power of the Supreme Court to write a prophylactic, extraconstitutional Constitution, binding on Congress and the States."

"The notion that the Constitution of the United States, designed, among other things, 'to establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, . . . and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity,' prohibits the States from simply banning this visibly brutal means of eliminating our half-born posterity is quite simply absurd."

"If one assumes, however, that the PGA TOUR has some legal obligation to play classic, Platonic golf—and if one assumes the correctness of all the other wrong turns the Court has made to get to this point—then we Justices must confront what is indeed an awesome responsibility. It has been rendered the solemn duty of the Supreme Court of the United States, laid upon it by Congress in pursuance of the Federal Government's power [t]o regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, U. S. Const., Art. I, § 8, cl. 3, to decide What Is Golf. I am sure that the Framers of the Constitution, aware of the 1457 edict of King James II of Scotland prohibiting golf because it interfered with the practice of archery, fully expected that sooner or later the paths of golf and government, the law and the links, would once again cross, and that the judges of this august Court would some day have to wrestle with that age-old jurisprudential question, for which their years of study in the law have so well prepared them: Is someone riding around a golf course from shot to shot really a golfer? The answer, we learn, is yes. The Court ultimately concludes, and it will henceforth be the Law of the Land, that walking is not a fundamental aspect of golf."

"I am left to defend the 'dead' Constitution."

"My difficulty with Roe v. Wade is a legal rather than a moral one. I do not believe – and no one believed for 200 years – that the Constitution contains a right to abortion. And if a state were to permit abortion on demand, I would and could in good conscience vote against an attempt to invalidate that law, for the same reason that I vote against invalidation of laws that contradict Roe v. Wade; namely, simply because the Constitution gives the federal government and, hence, me no power over the matter."

"Today's decision is the pinnacle of our Eighth Amendment death-is-different jurisprudence. Not only does it, like all of that jurisprudence, find no support in the text or history of the Eighth Amendment; it does not even have support in current social attitudes regarding the conditions that render an otherwise just death penalty inappropriate. Seldom has an opinion of this Court rested so obviously upon nothing but the personal views of its members."

"Campaign promises are, by long democratic tradition, the least binding form of human commitment."

"It seems to me that the more Christian a country is the less likely it is to regard the death penalty as immoral. Abolition has taken its firmest hold in post-Christian Europe, and has least support in the church-going United States. I attribute that to the fact that, for the believing Christian, death is no big deal. Intentionally killing an innocent person is a big deal: it is a grave sin, which causes one to lose his soul. But losing this life, in exchange for the next? The Christian attitude is reflected in the words Robert Bolt’s play has Thomas More saying to the headsman: 'Friend, be not afraid of your office. You send me to God'. For the nonbeliever, on the other hand, to deprive a man of his life is to end his existence."

"Since [Walton v. Arizona, 497 U.S.], I have acquired new wisdom ...or, to put it more critically, have discarded old ignorance"

"[Laws] prohibiting sodomy do not seem to have been enforced against consenting adults acting in private... I do not know what 'acting in private' means; surely consensual sodomy, like heterosexual intercourse, is rarely performed on stage."

"[The Texas anti-sodomy statute] undoubtedly imposes constraints on liberty. So do laws prohibiting prostitution, recreational use of heroin, and, for that matter, working more than 60 hours per week in a bakery. But there is no right to 'liberty' under the Due Process Clause, though today's opinion repeatedly makes that claim. . . . The Fourteenth Amendment expressly allows States to deprive their citizens of 'liberty,' so long as 'due process of law' is provided. . . ."

"If you care passionately about something has become the only test to determine if something is constitutional. How passionately do you care?"

"People look at rights as if they were muscles — the more you exercise them, the better they get."

"You could fire a grapefruit out of a cannon over the best law schools in the country - and that includes Chicago - and not hit an originalist."

"We Americans have a method for making the laws that are over us. We elect representatives to two Houses of Congress, each of which must enact the new law and present it for the approval of a President, whom we also elect. For over two decades now, unelected federal judges have been usurping this lawmaking power by converting what they regard as norms of international law into American law. Today's opinion approves that process in principle, though urging the lower courts to be more restrained. This Court seems incapable of admitting that some matters - any matters - are none of its business."

"Many think it not only inevitable but entirely proper that liberty give way to security in times of national crisis--that, at the extremes of military exigency, inter arma silent leges. Whatever the general merits of the view that war silences law or modulates its voice, that view has no place in the interpretation and application of a Constitution designed precisely to confront war and, in a manner that accords with democratic principles, to accommodate it."

"Robert F. Kennedy used to say, 'Some men see things as they are and ask why. Others dream things that never were and ask why not?'; that outlook has become a far too common and destructive approach to interpreting the law"

"Dispensing with confrontation because testimony is obviously reliable is akin to dispensing with jury trial because a defendant is obviously guilty."

"Judges who find Constitutional rights the Framers never intended take important issues out of the public space of democratic debate and suspend them in a sort of legal formaldehyde."

"Have the courage to have your wisdom regarded as stupidity."

"On the point of the Court's Roper decision: I watched one television commentary on the case in which the host had one person defending the opinion on the ground that people should not be subjected to capital punishment for crimes they commit when they are younger than eighteen, and the other person attacked the opinion on the ground that a jury should be able to decide that a person, despite the fact he was under eighteen, given the crime, given the person involved, should be subjected to capital punishment. And it struck me how irrelevant it was, how much the point had been missed. The question wasn’t whether the call was right or wrong. The important question was who [i.e., the Courts or Congress] should make the call."

"What a mockery today's opinion makes of Hamilton's expectation, announcing the Court's conclusion - that the meaning of our Constitution has changed over the past 15 years—not, mind you, not that this Court's decision 15 years ago was wrong, but that the Constitution has changed. The Court reaches this implausible result by purporting to advert, not to the original meaning of the Eighth Amendment, but to the evolving standards of decency, of our national society. It then finds, on the flimsiest of grounds, that a national consensus which could not be perceived in our people's laws barely 15 years ago now solidly exists."

"The Court thus proclaims itself sole arbiter of our Nation's moral standards—and in the course of discharging that awesome responsibility purports to take guidance from the views of foreign courts and legislatures. Because I do not believe that the meaning of our Eighth Amendment, any more than the meaning of other provisions of our Constitution, should be determined by the subjective views of five Members of this Court and like-minded foreigners, I dissent. Words have no meaning if the views of less than 50 percent of death penalty States can constitute a national consensus. Our previous cases have required overwhelming opposition to a challenged practice, generally over a long period of time."

"I think it is up to the judge to say what the Constitution provided, even if what it provided is not the best answer, even if you think it should be amended. If that's what it says, that's what it says."

"Now the Senate is looking for 'moderate' judges, 'mainstream' judges. What in the world is a moderate interpretation of a constitutional text? Halfway between what it says and what we'd like it to say?"

"If you're going to be a good and faithful judge, you have to resign yourself to the fact that you're not always going to like the conclusions you reach. If you like them all the time, you're probably doing something wrong."

"The main business of a lawyer is to take the romance, the mystery, the irony, the ambiguity out of everything he touches."

"I believe that our people’s traditional belief in the right of trial by jury is in perilous decline. That decline is bound to be confirmed, and indeed accelerated, by the repeated spectacle of a man’s going to his death because a judge found that an aggravating factor existed. We cannot preserve our veneration for the protection of the jury in criminal cases if we render ourselves callous to the need for that protection by regularly imposing the death penalty without it."

"Among the questions considered nonjusticiable is the definition of an impeachable offense. Whatever Congress says is an impeachable offense is an impeachable offense."

"On Global Warming, in response to Massachusetts Assistant Attorney General James Milkey's correction of Scalia's reference to the stratosphere: Troposphere, whatever. I told you before I'm not a scientist. That's why I don't want to have to deal with global warming, to tell you the truth."

"I think too many promising young minds are wasted on it."

"Jack Bauer saved Los Angeles. He saved hundreds of thousands of lives, are you going to convict Jack Bauer? Say that criminal law is against him? 'You have the right to a jury trial?' Is any jury going to convict Jack Bauer? I don't think so.""

"I don't think it's a living document, I think it's dead. More precisely, I think it's enduring. It doesn't change. I think that needs to be orthodoxy."

"As Justice Stevens explains, “ ‘objective evidence, though of great importance, [does] not wholly determine the controversy, for the Constitution contemplates that in the end our own judgment will be brought to bear on the question of the acceptability of the death penalty under the Eighth Amendment.’ ” (quoting Atkins v. Virginia). “I have relied on my own experience in reaching the conclusion that the imposition of the death penalty” Purer expression cannot be found of the principle of rule by judicial fiat. In the face of Justice Stevens’ experience, the experience of all others is, it appears, of little consequence. The experience of the state legislatures and the Congress—who retain the death penalty as a form of punishment—is dismissed as “the product of habit and inattention rather than an acceptable deliberative process.” The experience of social scientists whose studies indicate that the death penalty deters crime is relegated to a footnote. The experience of fellow citizens who support the death penalty is described, with only the most thinly veiled condemnation, as stemming from a “thirst for vengeance.” It is Justice Stevens’ experience that reigns over all."

"What if I am an aficionado of bullfights and I think, contrary to the animal cruelty people, that they ennoble both beast and man. I would not be able to market videos showing people how exciting a bullfight."

"Antonin Scalia: It's erected as a war memorial. I assume it is erected in honor of all of the war dead. It's the — the cross is the — is the most common symbol of — of — of the resting place of the dead, and it doesn't seem to me — what would you have them erect? A cross — some conglomerate of a cross, a , and you know, a Moslem half moon and star? Peter Eliasberg: Well, Justice Scalia, if I may go to your first point. The cross is the most common symbol of the resting place of Christians. I have been in Jewish cemeteries. There is never a cross on a tombstone of a Jew. [Laughter.] So it is the most common symbol to honor Christians. Antonin Scalia: I don't think you can leap from that to the conclusion that the only war dead that that cross honors are the Christian war dead. I think that's an outrageous conclusion."

"Certainly the Constitution does not require discrimination on the basis of sex. The only issue is whether it prohibits it. It doesn't. Nobody ever thought that that's what it meant. Nobody ever voted for that. If the current society wants to outlaw discrimination by sex, hey we have things called legislatures, and they enact things called laws. You don't need a constitution to keep things up-to-date. All you need is a legislature and a ballot box."

"In the 1970's and 1980's vaccines became, one might say, victims of their own success. They had been so effective in preventing infectious diseases that the public became much less alarmed at the threat of those diseases, and much more concerned with the risk of injury from the vaccines themselves."

"We are not talking here about a federal law prohibiting the States from regulating bubble-gum advertising, or even the construction of nuclear plants. We are talking about a federal law going to the core of state sovereignty: the power to exclude. […] The Court opinion’s looming specter of inutterable horror—‘[i]f [Section] 3 of the Arizona statute were valid, every State could give itself independent authority to prosecute federal registration violations’—seems to me not so horrible and even less looming. But there has come to pass, and is with us today, the specter that Arizona and the States that support it predicted: A Federal Government that does not want to enforce the immigration laws as written, and leaves the States’ borders unprotected against immigrants whom those laws would exclude. So the issue is a stark one. Are the sovereign States at the mercy of the Federal Executive’s refusal to enforce the Nation’s immigration laws? […] Arizona bears the brunt of the country’s illegal immigration problem. Its citizens feel themselves under siege by large numbers of illegal immigrants who invade their property, strain their social services, and even place their lives in jeopardy. Federal officials have been unable to remedy the problem, and indeed have recently shown that they are unwilling to do so. […] Arizona has moved to protect its sovereignty—not in contradiction of federal law, but in complete compliance with it. The laws under challenge here do not extend or revise federal immigration restrictions, but merely enforce those restrictions more effectively. If securing its territory in this fashion is not within the power of Arizona, we should cease referring to it as a sovereign State."

"If I were king, I would not allow people to go about burning the American flag. However, we have a First Amendment which says that the right of free speech shall not be abridged. And it is addressed, in particular, to speech critical of the government."

"The problem here, however, is suggested by the comment I made earlier, that the initial enactment of this legislation in a — in a time when the need for it was so much more abundantly clear was — in the Senate, there — it was double-digits against it. And that was only a 5-year term. Then, it is reenacted 5 years later, again for a 5-year term. Double-digits against it in the Senate. Then it was reenacted for 7 years. Single digits against it. Then enacted for 25 years, 8 Senate votes against it. And this last enactment, not a single vote in the Senate against it. And the House is pretty much the same. Now, I don't think that's attributable to the fact that it is so much clearer now that we need this. I think it is attributable, very likely attributable, to a phenomenon that is called perpetuation of racial ."

"Today's judgment will, to be sure, have the beneficial effect of solving more crimes; then again, so would the taking of DNA samples from anyone who flies on an airplane (surely the Transportation Security Administration needs to know the “identity” of the flying public), applies for a driver's license, or attends a public school. Perhaps the construction of such a genetic panopticon is wise. But I doubt that the proud men who wrote the charter of our liberties would have been so eager to open their mouths for royal inspection."

"I think the main fight is to dissuade Americans from what the secularists are trying to persuade them to be true: that the separation of church and state means that the government cannot favor religion over nonreligion... That's a possible way to run a political system. The Europeans run it that way... And if the American people want to do it, I suppose they can enact that by statute. But to say that's what the Constitution requires is utterly absurd."

"[N]ot once in the history of the American Republic has this Court ever suggested the death penalty is categorically impermissible. The reason is obvious: It is impossible to hold unconstitutional that which the Constitution explicitly contemplates. The Fifth Amendment provides that "[n]o person shall be held to answer for a capital . . . crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury," and that no person shall be "deprived of life . . . without due process of law.""

"You're looking at me as though I'm weird. My god! Are you so out of touch with most of America, most of which believes in the devil? I mean, Jesus Christ believed in the devil! It's in the Gospels! You travel in circles that are so, so removed from mainstream America that you are appalled that anybody would believe in the devil! Most of mankind has believed in the devil, for all of history. Many more intelligent people than you or me have believed in the devil."

"The Court's opinion serves up a freedom-destroying cocktail consisting of two parts patent falsity."

"Humanity has been around for at least some 5,000 years or so, and I doubt that the basic challenges it has confronted are any worse now, or, alas, even much different, from what they ever were."

"Perhaps the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act will attain the enduring status of the Social Security Act or the Taft-Hartley Act; perhaps not. But this Court’s two decisions on the Act will surely be remembered through the years. The somersaults of statutory interpretation they have performed (“penalty” means tax, “further [Medicaid] payments to the State” means only incremental Medicaid payments to the State, “established by the State” means not established by the State) will be cited by litigants endlessly, to the confusion of honest jurisprudence. And the cases will publish forever the discouraging truth that the Supreme Court of the United States favors some laws over others, and is prepared to do whatever it takes to uphold and assist its favorites."

"It is not of special importance to me what the law says about marriage. It is of overwhelming importance, however, who it is that rules me. Today's decree says that my Ruler, and the Ruler of 320 million Americans coast-to-coast, is a majority of the nine lawyers on the Supreme Court. The opinion in these cases is the furthest extension in fact—and the furthest extension one can even imagine—of the Court's claimed power to create “liberties” that the Constitution and its Amendments neglect to mention. This practice of constitutional revision by an unelected committee of nine, always accompanied (as it is today) by extravagant praise of liberty, robs the People of the most important liberty they asserted in the Declaration of Independence and won in the Revolution of 1776: the freedom to govern themselves."

"A system of government that makes the People subordinate to a committee of nine unelected lawyers does not deserve to be called a democracy."

"If, even as the price to be paid for a fifth vote, I ever joined an opinion for the Court that began: “The Constitution promises liberty to all within its reach, a liberty that includes certain specific rights that allow persons, within a lawful realm, to define and express their identity,” I would hide my head in a bag. The Supreme Court of the United States has descended from the disciplined legal reasoning of John Marshall and Joseph Story to the mystical aphorisms of the fortune cookie."

"To tell you the truth there is no place for that in our constitutional tradition. Where did that come from? To be sure, you can't favor one denomination over another but can't favor religion over non-religion?"

"God has been very good to us. That we won the revolution was extraordinary. The Battle of Midway was extraordinary. I think one of the reasons God has been good to us is that we have done him honor. Unlike the other countries of the world that do not even invoke his name we do him honor. In presidential addresses, in Thanksgiving proclamations and in many other ways."

"Winning and losing, that's never been my objective. It's my hope that in the fullness of time, the majority of the court will is come to see things as I do."

"The body of scientific evidence supporting creation science is as strong as that supporting evolution. In fact, it may be stronger.... The evidence for evolution is far less compelling than we have been led to believe. Evolution is not a scientific "fact," since it cannot actually be observed in a laboratory. Rather, evolution is merely a scientific theory or "guess."... It is a very bad guess at that. The scientific problems with evolution are so serious that it could accurately be termed a "myth.""

"Mere factual innocence is no reason not to carry out a death sentence properly reached."

"He was a towering figure who will be remembered as one of the most important figures in the history of the Supreme Court and a scholar who deeply influenced our legal culture. His intellect, learning, wit, and memorable writing will be sorely missed."

"Justice Scalia, do you sodomize your wife?"

"Scalia will be remembered chiefly for moving the conversation about statutory interpretation—in the direction of textualism—and constitutional interpretation—toward originalism. I have almost always found myself on the other side of these debates, but I nonetheless appreciate the magnitude of his influence. He redefined both fields."

"He was a jurist of captivating brilliance and wit, with a rare talent to make even the most sober judge laugh. The press referred to his ‘energetic fervor,’ ‘astringent intellect,’ ‘peppery prose,’ ‘acumen,’ and ‘affability,’ all apt descriptions. He was eminently quotable, his pungent opinions so clearly stated that his words never slipped from the reader’s grasp. […] It was my great good fortune to have known him as working colleague and treasured friend."

"Scalia was one of the most concerned members of the court about criminalizing politics and the line between what's allowed and what's not allowed. I think his voice would have been a very important one in the McDonnell case."

"In January 2002, Supreme Court Associate Justice Antonin Scalia made a major speech so sweeping and extreme in its contempt for democracy, and so willfully oblivious to the Constitution’s grounding in human rather than divine authority, that it might well, in an era when American secularists were less intimidated by the forces of religion, have elicited calls for impeachment."

"Scalia is right to observe that what a person believes happens after death determines his view of it-and therefore, his ethics. It is remarkable that we are the last civilized nation that still puts 'evildoers' to death, and Justice Scalia rightly attributes this to our style of religiosity...Scalia supports the use of capital punishment even in cases where the defendant is acknowledged to be mentally retarded. He also upholds state sodomy laws (in this case, even when they are applied in an exclusive and discriminating way to homosexuals.) Needless to say, Scalia has found legal reasons to insist that the Supreme Court not leaven the religious dogmatism of the states, but he leaves little doubt that he looks to Saint Paul, and perhaps to the barbarous authors of Leviticus for guidance on these matters."

"Scalia will go down in history as one of the most transformational Supreme Court Justices of our nation. His views on interpreting texts have changed the way all of us think and talk about the law. I admired Nino for his brilliance and erudition, his dedication and energy, and his peerless writing. And I treasured Nino’s friendship. I will always remember, and greatly miss, his warmth, charm, and generosity."

"In years to come any history of the Supreme Court will, and must, recount the wisdom, scholarship, and technical brilliance that Justice Scalia brought to the Court. His insistence on demanding standards shaped the work of the Court in its private discussions, its oral arguments, and its written opinions."

"the people's right to have their day in court is being foreclosed. Corporate victories in federal and state elections work hand in hand with this mission by assuring the nomination of more commercially-responsive judges such as Chief Justice Roberts, and Justices Scalia and Alito, with the same being true in many states."

"I am saddened to report that our colleague Justice Antonin Scalia has passed away. He was an extraordinary individual and jurist, admired and treasured by his colleagues. His passing is a great loss to the Court and the country he so loyally served."

"Richard Epstein's book, Takings: Private Property and the Power of the Eminent Domain, is the bible of the "ownership society" of the cowboy capitalists of the 21st century. It is also the bible of judges like Clarence Thomas and Antonio Scalia who have used Epstein's philosophy of takings to undo the Clean Water Act, the Endangered Species Act, and alter laws based on the public trust doctrine."

"[E]ven now, I'm confident Scalia's anti-gay beliefs will remain as a lasting blotch on his memory. But in a few decades—when a majority of Americans can't remember a time when the Constitution did not guarantee gay people the same fundamental rights as heterosexuals—the sting of this rhetoric will dwindle. Scalia, after all, was writing in dissent; his words had little impact on the country. […] Memories of his regrettable prejudices will recede, and in their place will emerge the image of a titan of constitutional law, a deeply principled, sincerely dedicated man who devoted his life to the court he loved."

"[I]f...a society adopts a constitution and incorporates in that constitution safeguards of individual liberty, these safeguards do indeed take on a general moral rightness or goodness. They assume a general social acceptance neither because of any intrinsic worth nor because of any unique origins in someone's idea of natural justice but instead simply because they have been incorporated in a constitution by the people."

"It is, I believe, impossible to justify the sacrifice of even a portion of our historic individual freedom for a purpose such as [giving blacks, Latinos and Jews the right to be served in local motels, hotels and restaurants]."

"Pregnancy is of course confined to women, but it is in other ways significantly different from the typical covered disease or disability."

"This result […] will daily stand as a veritable sword of Damocles over every succeeding president and his advisers."

"The Constitution requires that Congress treat similarly situated persons similarly, not that it engage in gestures of superficial equality."

"No amount of repetition of historical errors in judicial opinions can make the errors true. The "wall of separation between church and State" is a metaphor based on bad history, a metaphor which has proved useless as a guide to judging. It should be frankly and explicitly abandoned."

"The considered professional judgment of the Air Force is that the traditional outfitting of personnel in standardized uniforms encourages the subordination of personal preferences and identities in favor of the overall group mission."

"[Jury selection] is best based upon seat-of-the-pants instincts, which are undoubtedly crudely stereotypical and may in many cases be hopelessly mistaken."

"At the heart of the First Amendment is the recognition of the fundamental importance of the free flow of ideas and opinions on matters of public interest and concern. The freedom to speak one's mind is not only an aspect of individual liberty – and thus a good unto itself – but also is essential to the common quest for truth and the vitality of society as a whole. We have therefore been particularly vigilant to ensure that individual expressions of ideas remain free from governmentally imposed sanctions. The First Amendment recognizes no such thing as a "false" idea."

"A public library does not acquire Internet terminals in order to create a public forum for Web publishers to express themselves, any more than it collects books in order to provide a public forum for the authors of books to speak."

"[T]he Constitution does not guarantee the right to acquire information at a public library without any risk of embarrassment."

"To the extent that libraries wish to offer unfiltered access, they are free to do so without federal assistance."

"It is about time the Court faced the fact that the white people in the South don't like the colored people; the Constitution restrains them from effecting this dislike through state action, but it most assuredly did not appoint the Court as a sociological watchdog to rear up every time private discrimination raises its admittedly ugly head. To the extent that this decision advances the frontier of state action and 'social gain,' it pushes back the frontier of freedom of association and majority rule."

"The Supreme Court is an institution far more dominated by centrifugal forces, pushing toward individuality and independence, than it is by centripetal forces pulling for hierarchical ordering and institutional unity."

"Somewhere "out there," beyond the walls of the courthouse, run currents and tides of public opinion which lap at the courtroom door."

"An oft-heard description of the Supreme Court is that it is the ultimate protector in our society of the liberties of the individual. This phrase describes an important role of the Supreme Court, but by ignoring other equally important functions of the Court, it has a potential for mischief. It is a fairly short leap from this language to a feeling that the US Constitution is somehow "vindicated" every time a claim of individual right against government is upheld, and is not vindicated whenever such a claim is not upheld. But this, of course, cannot be the case. The role of the Supreme Court is to uphold those claims of individual liberty that it finds are well-founded in the Constitution, and to reject other claims against the government that it concludes are not well-founded. Its role is no more to exclusively uphold the claims of the individual than it is to exclusively uphold the claims of the government: It must hold the constitutional balance true between these claims."

"When you are young and impecunious, society conditions you to exchange time for money, and this is quite as it should be. Very few people are hurt by having to work for a living. But as you become more affluent, it somehow is very, very difficult to reverse that process and begin trading money for time."

"I've often started off with a lawyer joke, a complete caricature of a lawyer who's been nasty, greedy, and unethical. But I've stopped that practice. I gradually realized that the lawyers in the audience didn't think the jokes were funny and the non-lawyers didn't know they were jokes."

"Actually, the Swedish genealogists were so good that I found out more than I wanted to about my Swedish ancestors: one of them in the 17th century was executed for having embezzled funds from an estate for which he was the steward."

"As for the name Rehnquist, I am quite uncertain as to its origin. Under the Swedish patronymic system of naming, my grandfather and his brothers would have been named Anderson, since Anders was the name of their father. "Quist" in Swedish means branch, I am told. For example, "Lindquist" means lime branch or linden branch, and Palmquist means palm branch. The best I can come up with is that the "rehn" in my name refers to a small village near the farm on which my grandfather grew up."

"It has been said that Sweden's loss has been America's gain, and I think this is true. Swedish immigrants and their descendants have contributed a great deal to America and it is worthwhile to remember our Swedish heritage."

"A judge who is a 'strict constructionist' in constitutional matters will generally not be favorably inclined toward claims of either criminal defendants or civil rights plaintiffs—the latter two groups having been the principal beneficiaries of the Supreme Court's 'broad constructionist' reading of the Constitution."

"Inadequate compensation seriously compromises the judicial independence fostered by life tenure. That low salaries might force judges to return to the private sector rather than stay on the bench risks affecting judicial performance. . . Every time an experienced judge leaves the bench, the nation suffers temporary loss in judicial productivity. Diminishing judicial salaries affects not only those who have become judges but also the pool of those willing to be considered for a position on the federal bench."

"Our judges will not continue to represent the diverse face of America if only the well-to-do or the mediocre are willing to become judges."

"The framers of our Constitution came up with two major contributions to the art of government. The first was the idea of an executive not dependent on the political support of the legislature. The second was the idea of the judiciary independent of the executive and legislative branches."

"I want to put to rest the speculation and unfounded rumors of my imminent retirement... I am not about to announce my retirement. I will continue to perform my duties as chief justice as long as my health permits."

"Well, I think it's a very good job. One of the most appealing things about it is that... it enables you to participate in some way and to some extent in the way the country is governed but you're able to maintain a private life as well."

"I think Alexander Hamilton has received a little bit of short shrift from history, and I think Jefferson has been treated a little bit too generously. I admire them both, but I admire them both about equally."

"If you could say of any one individual that the court as an institution is the length and shadow of that individual, surely it would be John Marshall."

"Perhaps you should say there should be mandatory retirement even of members of the court, members of the federal judiciary. I'm sure there can be questions about whether one does as good work when you get into your—you know, I'm 67."

"The court has built a great deal of prestige, and I think is generally quite well thought of as a public institution in the country. It is always possible for the court to overreach its proper bounds and perhaps declare a lot of laws unconstitutional and frustrate the will of the majority in a way that it ought not be frustrated. In that sense, it poses a danger, but not the same sort of perhaps very active danger that a run-away Congress or runaway executive would."

"Well, it's just a sense of personal satisfaction. Just like taking a good photograph or painting a picture or playing a good golf game or something, it's the thing in itself that justifies it."

"[Rehnquist] was funny and charming, very bright and quick. He could give you all the good conservative arguments on any issue. He had no sympathy for criminal defendants — none. When you talked about the problem of the cities or the poor or blacks, it was clear he had no understanding. It was a universe he didn't comprehend."

"All nine of the justices on the Court at that time - Rehnquist, Scalia, Thomas, O'Connor, Kennedy, Stevens, Souter, Ginsburg, and Breyer - were extremely intelligent. But even in that room Rehnquist stood out. He had been first in his class at Stanford Law and he had a photographic memory, unlike any I'd ever encountered. My first impression of him proved right. He really didn't need law clerks. He was so damned smart. Most of the justices had law clerks prepare long bench memos on cases. Rehnquist didn't need that. He just wanted three-page summaries of the facts. He knew all the rest already."

"These guys are sitting there watching the destruction of our race while arguing about Ronald Reagan"

"Ronald Reagan isn't the problem. Former president Jimmy Carter was not the problem. The lack of black leadership is the problem"

"This is not an opportunity to talk about difficult matters privately or in a closed environment. This is a circus. It's a national disgrace. And from my standpoint, as a black American, it is a high-tech lynching for uppity blacks who in any way deign to think for themselves, to do for themselves, to have different ideas, and it is a message that unless you kowtow to an old order, this is what will happen to you. You will be lynched, destroyed, caricatured by a committee of the U.S. Senate rather than hung from a tree."

"[I disagree] that there is a racial paternalism exception to the principle of equal protection. I believe that there is a 'moral [and] constitutional equivalence,' between laws designed to subjugate a race and those that distribute benefits on the basis of race in order to foster some current notion of equality. Government cannot make us equal; it can only recognize, respect, and protect us as equal before the law."

"To define each of us by our race is nothing short of a denial of our humanity."

"[I claim] my right to think for myself, to refuse to have my ideas assigned to me as though I was an intellectual slave because I'm black."

"I can't see myself spending the rest of my life as a judge."

"Mister Mayor, my fellow colleagues of both bench and bar, it's a pleasure to be here. And one advantage is that similar to being on the bench, I have heard all of the arguments, and will take them under advisement. I have been told recently that Judge Bailey does not take matters under advisement that frequently, so I will stay out of his court. But it is indeed a pleasure to be here."

"A friend of mine who passed away some nine years ago was an active member of the NBA. And many of you may remember him, Gil Hardy. [Applause.] Probably one of the most painful tragedies for me of my confirmation was to see the name of one of the nicest, most decent human beings I had ever met, besmirched. And Gil was my best friend at both college and at Yale Law School. He was the best man at my wedding and he is the person to whom I went for solace."

"For those of you with whom I do not share the same opinion and perhaps that is many I will take only 30 minutes of your time. And perhaps at least we can part company having known we at least visited for 30 minutes."

"Thank you, Judge Keith, for your kind, warm words. As always, I deeply appreciate the manner in which you have made yourself available over the years for counsel and advice. And I appreciate your courteous and dignified example over the past 15 years. And I might add parenthetically here, I met Judge Keith in the early '80s when I was trying to figure out a way to distribute in excess of 10 million dollars to minorities for scholarships, and was being opposed by individuals who should have been supporting us. And it was his advice and counsel that bolstered us in that effort. We who are just commencing our tenures as judges can only hope to emulate your positive spirit and the strength of character that you've always demonstrated."

"I'd also like to thank President Jones for his support, Justice Johnson for your strength and your courage and you stick-to-it-tivity, Judge Bailey - who I thought I had gotten into a mess, but having had dinner with him, he got me into a mess — but I have enjoyed your company and the opportunity to learn from you, to get to know you, and perhaps to develop a friendship over the years. And I would like to thank the other members of the Judicial Council for the National Bar Association who have been so courageous and forthright and kind to invite me to join you this afternoon."

"As has become the custom, a wearisome one I admit, this invitation has not been without controversy. Though this unfortunate, this controversy has added little value in the calculus of my decision to be here."

"Thirty years ago, we all focused intently on this city as the trauma of Dr. King's death first exploded, then sank into our lives. For so many of us who were trying hard to do what we thought was required of us in the process of integrating this society, the rush of hopelessness and isolation was immediate and overwhelming. It seemed that the whole world had gone mad."

"I am certain that each of us has his or her memories of that terrible day in 1968. For me it was the final straw in the struggle to retain my vocation to become a Catholic priest. Suddenly, this cataclysmic event ripped me from the moorings of my grandparents, my youth and my faith, and catapulted me headlong into the abyss that Richard Wright seemed to describe years earlier."

"It was this event that shattered my faith in my religion and my country. I had spent the mid-'60s as a successful student in a virtually white environment. I had learned Latin, physics and chemistry. I had accepted the loneliness that came with being "the integrator," the first and the only. But this event, this trauma I could not take, especially when one of my fellow seminarians, not knowing that I was standing behind him, declared that he hoped the S.O.B. died. This was a man of God, mortally stricken by an assassin's bullet, and one preparing for the priesthood had wished evil upon him."

"The life I had dreamed of so often during those hot summers on the farm in Georgia or during what seemed like endless hours on the oil truck with my grandfather, expired as Dr. King expired. As so many of you do, I still know exactly where I was when I heard the news. It was a low moment in our nation's history and a demarcation between hope and hopelessness for many of us."

"But three decades have evaporated in our lives, too quickly and without sufficient residual evidence of their importance. But much has changed since then. The hope that there would be expeditious resolutions to our myriad problems has long since evaporated with those years. Many who debated and hoped then, now do neither. There now seems to be a broad acceptance of the racial divide as a permanent state. While we once celebrated those things that we had in common with our fellow citizens who did not share our race, so many now are triumphal about our differences, finding little, if anything, in common. Indeed, some go so far as to all but define each of us by our race and establish the range of our thinking and our opinions, if not our deeds by our color."

"I, for one, see this in much the same way I saw our denial of rights — as nothing short of a denial of our humanity. Not one of us has the "gospel," nor are our opinions based upon some revealed precepts to be taken as faith. As thinking, rational individuals, not one of us can claim infallibility, even from the overwhelming advantage of hindsight and Monday-morning quarterbacking."

"This makes it all the more important that our fallible ideas be examined as all ideas are in the realm of reason, not as some doctrinal or racial heresy. None of us — none of us have been appointed by God or appointed God. And if any of us has, then my question is why hasn't he or she solved all these problems."

"I make no apologies for this view now, nor do I intend to do so in the future. I have now been on the court for seven terms. For the most part, it has been much like other endeavors in life. It has its challenges and requires much of the individual to master the workings of the institution. We all know that. It is, I must say, quite different from what I might have anticipated if I had the opportunity to do so."

"Unlike the unfortunate practice or custom in Washington and in much of the country, the court is a model of civility. It's a wonderful place. Though there have been many contentious issues to come before the court during these initial years of my tenure, I have yet to hear the first unkind words exchanged among my colleagues. And quite frankly, I think that such civility is the sine qua non of conducting the affairs of the court and the business of the country."

"As such, I think that it would be in derogation of our respective oaths and our institutional obligations to our country to engage in uncivil behavior. It would also be demeaning to any of us who engages in such conduct. Having worn the robe, we have a lifetime obligation to conduct ourselves as having deserved to wear the robe in the first instance."

"One of the interesting surprises is the virtual isolation, even within the court. It is quite rare that the members of the court see each other during those periods when we're not sitting or when we're not in conference. And the most regular contact beyond those two formal events are the lunches we have on conference and court days."

"With respect to my following, or, more accurately, being led by other members of the Court, that is silly, but expected since I couldn't possibly think for myself. And what else could possibly be the explanation when I fail to follow the jurisprudential, ideological and intellectual, if not anti-intellectual, prescription assigned to blacks. Since thinking beyond this prescription is presumptively beyond my abilities, obviously someone must be putting these strange ideas into my mind and my opinions."

"Though being underestimated has its advantages, the stench of racial inferiority still confounds my olfactory nerves."

"As Ralph Ellison wrote more than 35 years ago, 'Why is it so often true that when critics confront the American as Negro, they suddenly drop their advanced critical armament and revert with an air of confident superiority to quite primitive modes of analysis?' Those matters accomplished by whites are routinely subjected to sophisticated modes of analysis. But the when the selfsame matters are accomplished by blacks, the opaque racial prism of analysis precludes such sophistication, and all is seen in black and white. And some who would not venture onto the more sophisticated analytical turf are quite content to play in the minor leagues of primitive harping. The more things change, the more they remain the same."

"Of course there is much criticism of the court by this group or that, depending on the court's decisions in various highly publicized cases. Some of the criticism is profoundly uninformed and unhelpful. And all too often, uncivil second-guessing is not encumbered by the constraints of facts, logic or reasoned analysis."

"On the other hand, the constructive and often scholarly criticism is almost always helpful in thinking about or rethinking decisions. It is my view that constructive criticism goes with the turf, especially when the stakes are so high and the cases arouse passions and emotions. And, in a free society, the precious freedom of speech and the strength of ideas, we at the court could not possibly claim exemption from such criticism. Moreover, we are not infallible, just final."

"As I have noted, I find a thoughtful, analytical criticism most helpful. I do not think any judge can address a vast array of cases and issues without testing and re-testing his or her reasoning and opinions in the crucible of debate. However, since we are quite limited in public debate about matters that may come before the court, such debate must, for the most part, occur intramurally, thus placing a premium on outside scholarship."

"Unfortunately, from time to time, the criticism of the court goes beyond the bounds of civil debate and discourse. Today it seems quite acceptable to attack the court and other institutions when one disagrees with an opinion or policy. I can still remember traveling along Highway 17 in south Georgia, the Coastal Highway, during the fifties and sixties, and seeing the 'Impeach Earl Warren' signs."

"Clearly, heated reactions to the court or to its members are not unusual. Certainly, Justice Blackmun was attacked repeatedly because many disagreed, as I have, with the opinion he offered on behalf of the Court in Roe vs. Wade. Though I have joined opinions disagreeing with Justice Blackmun, I could not imagine ever being discourteous to him merely because we disagreed."

"I've found during my almost twenty years in Washington that the tendency to personalize differences has grown to be an accepted way of doing business. One need not do the hard work of dissecting an argument. One need only attack and thus discredit the person making the argument. Though the matter being debated is not effectively resolved, the debate is reduced to unilateral pronouncements and glib but quotable cliches."

"I, for one, have been singled out for particularly bilious and venomous assaults. These criticisms, as near as I can tell, and I admit that it is rare that I take notice of this calumny, have little to do with any particular opinion, though each opinion does provide one more occasion to criticize. Rather, the principal problem seems to be a deeper antecedent offense: I have no right to think the way I do because I'm black."

"Though the ideas and opinions themselves are not necessarily illegitimate if held by non-black individuals, they, and the person enunciating them, are illegitimate if that person happens to be black. Thus, there's a subset of criticism that must of necessity be reserved for me, even if every non-black member of the court agrees with the idea or the opinion. You see, they are exempt from this kind of criticism, precisely because they are not black. As noted earlier, they are more often than not subjected to the whites-only sophisticated analysis."

"I will not cataloge my opinions to which there have been objections since they are a matter of public record. But I must note in passing that I can't help but wonder if some of my critics can read."

"One opinion that is trotted out for propaganda, for the propaganda parade, is my dissent in Hudson vs. McMillian. The conclusion reached by the long arms of the critics is that I supported the beating of prisoners in that case. Well, one must either be illiterate or fraught with malice to reach that conclusion. Though one can disagree with my dissent, and certainly the majority of the court disagreed, no honest reading can reach such a conclusion. Indeed, we took the case to decide the quite narrow issue, whether a prisoner's rights were violated under the 'cruel and unusual punishment' clause of the Eighth Amendment as a result of a single incident of force by the prison guards which did not cause a significant injury. In the first section of my dissent, I stated the following: 'In my view, a use of force that causes only insignificant harm to a prisoner may be immoral; it may be tortuous; it may be criminal, and it may even be remediable under other provisions of the Federal Constitution. But it is not cruel and unusual punishment.' Obviously, beating prisoners is bad. But we did not take the case to answer this larger moral question or a larger legal question of remedies under other statutes or provisions of the Constitution. How one can extrapolate these larger conclusions from the narrow question before the court is beyond me, unless, of course, there's a special segregated mode of analysis."

"It should be obvious that the criticism of this opinion serves not to present counter-arguments, but to discredit and attack me because I've deviated from the prescribed path. In his intriguing and thoughtful essay on My Race Problem and Ours, Harvard law professor Randall Kennedy, a self-described social Democrat, correctly observes that 'If racial loyalty is deemed essentially and morally virtuous, then a black person's adoption of positions that are deemed racially disloyal will be seen by racial loyalists as a supremely threatening sin, one warranting the harsh punishments that have historically been visited upon alleged traitors.' Perhaps this is the defensive solidarity to which Richard Wright refers. If so, it is a reaction I understand, but resolutely decline to follow."

"In the final weeks of my seminary days, shortly after Dr. King's death, I found myself becoming consumed by feelings of animosity and anger. I was disenchanted with my church and my country. I was tired of being in the minority, and I was tired of turning the other cheek. I, along with many blacks, found ways to protest and try to change the treatment we received in this country. Perhaps my passion for Richard Wright novels was affecting me. Perhaps it was listening too intently to Nina Simone. Perhaps, like Bigger Thomas, I was being consumed by the circumstances in which I found myself, circumstances that I saw as responding only to race."

"My feelings were reaffirmed during the summer of 1968 as a result of the lingering stench of racism in Savannah and the assassination of Bobby Kennedy. No matter what the reasons were, I closed out the sixties as one angry young man waiting on the revolution that I was certain would soon come. I saw no way out. I, like many others, felt the deep chronic agony of anomie and alienation. All seemed to be defined by race. We became a reaction to the 'man', his ominous reflection."

"The intensity of my feelings was reinforced by other events of the late '60s: the riots, the marches, the sense that something had to be done, done quickly to resolve the issue of race. In college there was an air of excitement, apprehension and anger. We started the Black Students Union. We protested. We worked in the Free Breakfast Program. We would walk out of school in the winter of 1969 in protest."

"But the questioning for me started in the spring of 1970 after an unauthorized demonstration in Cambridge, Massachusetts, to "free the political prisoners." Why was I doing this rather than using my intellect? Perhaps I was empowered by the anger and relieved that I could now strike back at the faceless oppressor. But why was I conceding my intellect and rather fighting much like a brute? This I could not answer, except to say that I was tired of being restrained."

"Somehow I knew that unless I contained the anger within me I would suffer the fates of Bigger Thomas and Damon Cross. It was intoxicating to act upon one's rage, to wear it on one's shoulder, to be defined by it. Yet, ultimately, it was destructive, and I knew it."

"So in the spring of 1970, in a nihilistic fog, I prayed that I'd be relieved of the anger and the animosity that ate at my soul. I did not want to hate any more, and I had to stop before it totally consumed me. I had to make a fundamental choice. Do I believe in the principles of this country or not? After such angst, I concluded that I did. But the battle between passion and reason would continue, although abated, still intense."

"Ironically, many of the people who are critics today were among those we called half-steppers, who had co-opted by "the man" because they were part of the system that oppressed us. When the revolution came, all of the so-called Negroes needed to be dealt with."

"It is interesting to remember that someone gave me a copy of Prof. Thomas Sowell's book, Education, Myths and Tragedies, in which he predicted much of what has happened to blacks and education. I threw it in the trash, unread, declaring that he was not a black man since no black could take the positions that he had taken, whatever they were, since I had only heard his views were not those of a black man."

"I was also upset to hear of a black conservative in Virginia named Jay Parker. How could a black man call himself a conservative? In a twist of fate, they both are dear friends today, and the youthful wrath I visited upon them is now being visited upon me, though without the youth. What goes around does indeed come around."

"The summer of 1971 was perhaps one of the most difficult of my life. It was clear to me that the road to destruction was paved with anger, resentment and rage. But where were we to go? I would often spend hours in our small efficiency apartment in New Haven pondering this question and listening to Marvin Gaye's then new album, "What's Going On?" To say the least, it was a depressing summer. What were we to do? What's going on?"

"As I think back on those years, I find it interesting that many people seemed to have trouble with their identities as black men. Having had to accept my blackness in the caldron of ridicule from some of my black schoolmates under segregation, then immediately thereafter remain secure in that identity during my years at all-white seminary, I had few racial identity problems. I knew who I was and needed no gimmicks to affirm my identity. Nor, might I add, do I need anyone telling me who I am today. This is especially true of the psycho-silliness about forgetting my roots or self-hatred. If anything, this shows that some people have too much time on their hands."

"There's a rush today to prescribe who is black, to prescribe what our differences, or to ignore what our differences, are. Of course, those of us who came from the rural South were different from the blacks who came from the large northern cities, such as Philadelphia and New York. We were all black. But that similarity did not mask the richness of our differences. Indeed, one of the advantages of growing up in a black neighborhood was that we were richly blessed with the ability to see the individuality of each black person with all its fullness and complexity. We saw those differences at school, at home, at church, and definitely at the barbershop on Saturday morning."

"Intra-racially, we consistently recognized our differences. It is quite counter-factual to suggest that such differences have not existed throughout our history. Indeed, when I was on the other side of the ideological divide, arguing strenuously with my grandfather that the revolution was imminent and that we all had to stick together as black people, he was quick to remind me that he had lived much longer than I had and during far more difficult times, and that, in any case, it took all kinds to make a world."

"I agree with Ralph Ellison when he asked, perhaps rhetorically, why is it that so many of those who would tell us the meaning of Negro, of Negro life, never bothered to learn how varied it really is. That is particularly true of many whites who have elevated condescension to an art form by advancing a monolithic view of blacks in much the same way that the mythic, disgusting image of the lazy, dumb black was advanced by open, rather than disguised, bigots."

"Today, of course, it is customary to collapse, if not overwrite, our individual characteristics into new, but now acceptable stereotypes. It no longer matters whether one is from urban New York City or rural Georgia. It doesn't matter whether we came from a highly educated family or a barely literate one. It does not matter if you are a Roman Catholic or a Southern Baptist. All of these differences are canceled by race, and a revised set of acceptable stereotypes have been put in place."

"Long gone is the time when we opposed the notion that we all looked alike and talked alike. Somehow we have come to exalt the new black stereotype above all and to demand conformity to that norm. It is this notion — that our race defines us -- that Ralph Ellison so eloquently rebuts in his essay, "The World and the Jug." He sees the lives of black people as more than a burden, but also a discipline, just as any human life which has endured so long is a discipline, teaching its own insights into the human condition, its own strategies of survival. There's a fullness and even a richness here. And here despite the realities of politics, perhaps, but nevertheless here and real because it is human life."

"Despite some of the nonsense that has been said about me by those who should know better, and so much nonsense, or some of which subtracts from the sum total of human knowledge, despite this all, I am a man, a black man, an American. And my history is not unlike that of many blacks from the deep South. And in many ways it is not that much different from that of many other Americans."

"It goes without saying that I understand the comforts and security of racial solidarity, defensive or otherwise. Only those who have not been set upon by hatred and repelled by rejection fail to understand its attraction. As I have suggested, I have been there."

"The inverse relationship between the bold promises and the effectiveness of the proposed solutions, the frustrations with the so-called system, the subtle and not-so-subtle bigotry and animus towards members of my race made radicals and nationalists of many of us. Yes, I understand the reasons why this is attractive. But it is precisely this -- in its historic form, not its present-day diluted form that I have rejected. My question was whether as an individual I truly believed that I was the equal of individuals who were white. This I had answered with a resounding "yes" in 1964 during my sophomore year in the seminary. And that answer continues to be yes. Accordingly, my words and my deeds are consistent with this answer."

"Any effort, policy or program that has as a prerequisite the acceptance of the notion that blacks are inferior is a non-starter with me. I do not believe that kneeling is a position of strength. Nor do I believe that begging is an effective tactic. I am confident that the individual approach, not the group approach, is the better, more acceptable, more supportable and less dangerous one. This approach is also consistent with the underlying principles of this country and the guarantees of freedom through government by consent. I, like Frederick Douglass, believe that whites and blacks can live together and be blended into a common nationality."

"Do I believe that my views or opinions are perfect or infallible? No, I do not. But in admitting that I have no claim to perfection or infallibility, I am also asserting that competing or differing views similarly have no such claim. And they should not be accorded a status of infallibility or any status that suggests otherwise."

"With differing, but equally fallible views, I think it is best that they be aired and sorted out in an environment of civility, consistent with the institutions in which we are involved. In this case, the judicial system."

"It pains me deeply, or more deeply than any of you can imagine, to be perceived by so many members of my race as doing them harm. All the sacrifice, all the long hours of preparation were to help, not to hurt. But what hurts more, much more, is the amount of time and attention spent on manufactured controversies and media sideshows when so many problems cry out for constructive attention."

"I have come here today not in anger or to anger, though my mere presence has been sufficient, obviously, to anger some. Nor have I come to defend my views, but rather to assert my right to think for myself, to refuse to have my ideas assigned to me as though I was an intellectual slave because I'm black. I come to state that I'm a man, free to think for myself and do as I please."

"I've come to assert that I am a judge and I will not be consigned the unquestioned opinions of others. But even more than that, I have come to say that isn't it time to move on? Isn't it time to realize that being angry with me solves no problems? Isn't it time to acknowledge that the problem of race has defied simple solutions and that not one of us, not a single one of us can lay claim to the solution? Isn't it time that we respect ourselves and each other as we have demanded respect from others? Isn't it time to ignore those whose sole occupation is sowing seeds of discord and animus? That is self-hatred. Isn't it time to continue diligently to search for lasting solutions? I believe that the time has come today. God bless each of you, and may God keep you."

"[My] approach recognizes the basic principle of a written Constitution. We "the people" adopted a written Constitution precisely because it has a fixed meaning, a meaning that does not change. Otherwise we would have adopted the British approach of an unwritten, evolving constitution. Aside from amendment according to Article V, the Constitution’s meaning cannot be updated, or changed, or altered by the Supreme Court, the Congress, or the President. Of course, even when strictly interpreted as I believe it should be, the Constitution remains a modern, "breathing" document as some like to call it, in the sense that the Court is constantly required to interpret how its provisions apply to the Constitutional questions of modern life. Nevertheless, strict interpretation must never surrender to the understandably attractive impulse towards creative but unwarranted alterations of first principles."

"A white person is free to think whatever they want to think, but a black person has to think a certain way. Why do you think I get in so much controversy? People have a model of what they think a black person should think."

"It's fascinating that people, there's so many people now who will make judgments based on what you look like. I'm black, so I'm supposed to think a certain way? I'm supposed to have certain opinions? I don't do that. You don't create a box and put people in and then make a lot of generalizations about them."

"Something has gone seriously awry with this Court's interpretation of the Constitution."

"Those incentives have made the legacy of this Courts public purpose test an unhappy one. In the 1950s, no doubt emboldened in part by the expansive understanding of public use this Court adopted in Berman, cities rushed to draw plans for downtown development. Of all the families displaced by urban renewal from 1949 through 1963, 63 percent of those whose race was known were nonwhite, and of these families, 56 percent of nonwhites and 38 percent of whites had incomes low enough to qualify for public housing, which, however, was seldom available to them. Public works projects in the 1950s and 1960s destroyed predominantly minority communities in St. Paul, Minnesota, and Baltimore, Maryland. In 1981, urban planners in Detroit, Michigan, uprooted the largely lower-income and elderly Poletown neighborhood for the benefit of the General Motors Corporation. Urban renewal projects have long been associated with the displacement of blacks; [i]n cities across the country, urban renewal came to be known as Negro removal. Over 97 percent of the individuals forcibly removed from their homes by the slum-clearance project upheld by this Court in Berman were black. Regrettably, the predictable consequence of the Court’s decision will be to exacerbate these effects."

"For a time we wondered why our real father didn't come and rescue us, but we had long since accepted our fate by the time we finally met him."

"Long after the fact, it occurred to me that this was a metaphor for life- blisters come before calluses, vulnerability before maturity- but not even the thickest of skins could have spared us the lash of Daddy's tongue."

"I began to suspect that Daddy had been right all along: the only hope I had of changing the world was to change myself first."

"The black people I knew came from different places and backgrounds- social, economic, even ethnic- yet the color of our skin was somehow supposed to make us identical in spite of our differences. I didn't buy it. Of course we had all experienced racism in one way or another, but did that mean that we had to think alike?"

"I often had occasion to remind myself in years to come that self-interest isn't a principle- it's just self-interest."

"The popular political answers of the day, I saw, had hardened into dogma, making anyone who questioned them a heretic. Having turned my back on religion, I saw no reason to accept mere political opinions as gospel truth. Years later these same dogmatists would walk away from the wreckage of their failed policies, like children tossing aside a broken toy. But the victims they left behind were real people- my people."

"All I cared about was finding answers, no matter who had them. When, later on, I began to associate with conservatives, it was because their ideas were closer to mine than liberals' ideas, not because I saw myself as one of them. I'd already noticed that it was liberals, not conservatives, who were most likely to condescend to blacks, but I assumed, like the good radical I once was, that liberals and conservatives were simply two different breeds of snake, one stealthy, the other openly hostile."

"How often had he longed to hold us, hug us, grant our every wish, but held himself back for fear of letting us see his vulnerability, believing as he did that real love demanded not affection but discipline?"

"Even then, though, I cared about people, not theories. I had no wish to spin individual cases into some grandiose, ideologically driven legal theory. I no longer believed in utopian solutions, or the cynical politicians who used them to sucker voters, claiming to care about the poor while actually exploiting them. Not only was I sure that such solutions were doomed to failure, but I also feared that once they failed, the resulting disillusionment would make matters even worse. Yet it was taken for granted in the seventies that the purveyors of these elaborate nostrums were doing the right thing, and anyone who dared to challenge their effectiveness was hooted down. That prospect intimidated me, especially when it came to racial matters."

"I knew that until I was ready to tell the truth as I saw it, I was no better than a politician- but I didn't know whether I would ever be brave enough to break ranks and speak my mind."

"I had manufactured artificial goals as a means of motivating myself, using my longing for money, cars, and other material possessions to create a false sense of purpose. They had worked on me like spoonfuls of sugar- a jolt of energy that soon faded, leaving behind the pangs of a deeper hunger. I had cut myself off from the transcendent hope of religion, and now a vast and frightening expanse of uncertainty lay before me."

"I could feel the golden handcuffs of a comfortable but unfulfilling life snapping shut on my wrists."

"I could only choose between being an outcast and being dishonest."

"An education is meaningless unless it equips students to have a better life."

"I was seized with a guilt that I knew would never leave me, and I knew I didn't deserve to be free of it. I hadn't quite reached the end of my rope, but I was close enough."

"Then, as always, I felt morally obligated to advocate our official position, even when it conflicted with my personal views."

"I recalled the ants I had watched as a child on the farm, building their hills one grain of sand at a time, only to have them senselessly destroyed in an instant by a passing foot. I'd pieced my life together the same way, slowly and agonizingly. Would it, too, be kicked callously into dust?"

"The important thing was that I had never behaved inappropriately toward any woman, and I had no intention of letting my enemies hang that age-old charge of sexual impropriety around my neck. Those who wished only to exploit my past failings, not forgive them, would get no help from me."

"As for the matter of my judicial philosophy, I didn't have one- and didn't want one. A philosophy that is imposed from without instead of arising organically from day-to-day engagement with the law isn't worth having. Such a philosophy runs the risk of becoming an ideology, and I'd spent much of my adult life shying away from abstract ideological theories that served only to obscure the reality of life as it's lived."

"I had sworn to administer justice "faithfully and impartially." To do otherwise would be to violate my oath. That meant I had no business of imposing my personal views on the country. Nor did I have the slightest intention of doing so."

"Perhaps the fires through which I had passed would have a purifying effect on me, just as a blast furnace burns the impurities out of steel."

"Thanks to God's direct intervention, I had risen phoenixlike from the ashes of self-pity and despair, and though my wounds were still raw, I trusted that in time they, too, would heal."

"Tillman was from South Carolina, and as I hear the story he was concerned that the corporations, Republican corporations, were favorable toward blacks and he felt that there was a need to regulate them."

"The Court's decision today is at odds not only with the constitution, but with the principles upon which our Nation was built. Since well before 1787, liberty has been understood as freedom from government action, not entitlement to government benefits. The framers created our constitution to preserve that understanding of liberty. Yet the majority invokes our Constitution in the name of a 'liberty' that the framers would not have recognized, to the detriment of the liberty they sought to protect. Along the way, it rejects the idea—captured in our Declaration of Independence—that human dignity is innate and suggests instead that it comes from the Government. This distortion of our Constitution not only ignores the text, it inverts the relationship between the individual and the state in our Republic. I cannot agree with it."

"The majority's decision today will require States to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples and to recognize same-sex marriages entered in other States largely based on a constitutional provision guaranteeing 'due process' before a person is deprived of his 'life, liberty, or property'. I have elsewhere explained the dangerous fiction of treating the Due Process Clause as a font of substantive rights. It distorts the constitutional text, which guarantees only whatever 'process' is 'due' before a person is deprived of life, liberty, and property. Worse, it invites judges to do exactly what the majority has done here."

"By straying from the text of the Constitution, substantive due process exalts judges at the expense of the People from whom they derive their authority. Petitioners argue that by enshrining the traditional definition of marriage in their State Constitutions through voter-approved amendments, the States have put the issue 'beyond the reach of the normal democratic process'. But the result petitioners seek is far less democratic. They ask nine judges on this Court to enshrine their definition of marriage in the Federal Constitution and thus put it beyond the reach of the normal democratic process for the entire Nation. That a 'bare majority' of this Court is able to grant this wish, wiping out with a stroke of the keyboard the results of the political process in over 30 States, based on a provision that guarantees only 'due process' is but further evidence of the danger of substantive due process."

"Even if the doctrine of substantive due process were somehow defensible, it is not, petitioners still would not have a claim. To invoke the protection of the Due Process Clause at all, whether under a theory of 'substantive' or 'procedural' due process, a party must first identify a deprivation of 'life, liberty, or property'. The majority claims these state laws deprive petitioners of 'liberty', but the concept of 'liberty' it conjures up bears no resemblance to any plausible meaning of that word as it is used in the Due Process Clauses."

"As used in the Due Process Clauses, 'liberty' most likely refers to 'the power of loco-motion, of changing situation, or removing one's person to whatsoever place one's own inclination may direct; without imprisonment or restraint, unless by due course of law'. That definition is drawn from the historical roots of the Clauses and is consistent with our Constitution’s text and structure. Both of the Constitution’s Due Process Clauses reach back to Magna Carta. Chapter 39 of the original Magna Carta provided ',No free man shall be taken, imprisoned, disseised, outlawed, banished, or in any way destroyed, nor will We proceed against or prosecute him, except by the lawful judgment of his peers and by the law of the land'. Although the 1215 version of Magna Carta was in effect for only a few weeks, this provision was later reissued in 1225 with modest changes to its wording as follows: 'No freeman shall be taken, or imprisoned, or be disseised of his freehold, or liberties, or free customs, or be outlawed, or exiled, or any otherwise destroyed; nor will we not pass upon him, nor condemn him, but by lawful judgment of his peers or by the law of the land'. In his influential commentary on the provision many years later, Sir Edward Coke interpreted the words 'by the law of the land' to mean the same thing as 'by due proces of the common law'."

"After Magna Carta became subject to renewed interest in the 17th century, William Blackstone referred to this provision as protecting the 'absolute rights of every Englishman'. And he formulated those absolute rights as 'the right of personal security', which included the right to life; 'the right of personal liberty'; and 'the right of private property'. He defined 'the right of personal liberty' as 'the power of loco-motion, of changing situation, or removing one's person to whatsoever place one’s own inclination may direct; without imprisonment or restraint, unless by due course of law'. The Framers drew heavily upon Blackstone's formulation, adopting provisions in early State Constitutions that replicated Magna Carta's language, but were modified to refer specifically to 'life, liberty, or property'. State decisions interpreting these provisions between the founding and the ratification of the Fourteenth Amendment almost uniformly construed the word 'liberty' to refer only to freedom from physical restraint. Even one case that has been identified as a possible exception to that view merely used broad language about liberty in the context of a habeas corpus proceeding—a proceeding classically associated with obtaining freedom from physical restraint."

"In enacting the Fifth Amendment’s Due Process Clause, the Framers similarly chose to employ the 'life, liberty, or property' formulation, though they otherwise deviated substantially from the States' use of Magna Carta's language in the Clause. When read in light of the history of that formulation, it is hard to see how the 'liberty' protected by the Clause could be interpreted to include anything broader than freedom from physical restraint. That was the consistent usage of the time when 'liberty' was paired with 'life' and 'property'. And that usage avoids rendering superfluous those protections for 'life' and 'property'. If the Fifth Amendment uses 'liberty' in this narrow sense, then the Fourteenth Amendment likely does as well."

"Human dignity has long been understood in this country to be innate. When the framers proclaimed in the Declaration of Independence that 'all men are created equal' and 'endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights', they referred to a vision of mankind in which all humans are created in the image of God and therefore of inherent worth. That vision is the foundation upon which this nation was built. The corollary of that principle is that human dignity cannot be taken away by the government. Slaves did not lose their dignity, any more than they lost their humanity, because the government allowed them to be enslaved. Those held in internment camps did not lose their dignity because the government confined them. And those denied governmental benefits certainly do not lose their dignity because the government denies them those benefits. The government cannot bestow dignity, and it cannot take it away."

"No good comes from being in the woods."

"Lying takes the form of mass media creating the myth that feminist movement has completely transformed society, so much so that the politics of patriarchal power have been inverted and that men, particularly white men, just like emasculated black men, have become the victims of dominating women. So, it goes, all men (especially black men) must pull together (as in the Clarence Thomas hearings) to support and reaffirm patriarchal domination."

"One fact lay embedded in the center of the Clarence Thomas controversy: We have lost a great American jurist, Thurgood Marshall. No one can replace him. The very thought of replacing him insults the brilliance of his career and the exceptional humanity of his intelligence as he reflected upon our most extreme and consequential public debates. And yet someone new had to be appointed to take his seat. The President made his move. He nominated a man as different from Marshall as George Bush differs from Mahatma Gandhi. He nominated a man whose most striking characteristic seems to be that of satisfied self-hatred, a man whose public condemnation of his sister strikingly revealed his attitude toward the poor and the weak. For some, the issue became Black manhood or the sentimentalized biography of Clarence Thomas. They focused upon who the candidate was rather than what he has done and will do. This was identity politics taken to its lowest level. On the American Right, however, there was more clarity. Among those who detested Thurgood Marshall and who generally despise Black men there was a willingness to promote Clarence Thomas because Clarence Thomas was not the point: The point is to homogenize the Supreme Court. If someone with Black skin will serve that purpose, then fine! But we, the people, must not yield to judgment without representation. If we yield, there will be no justice. And without justice, believe me, there will be no peace."

"Richard Epstein's book, Takings: Private Property and the Power of the Eminent Domain, is the bible of the "ownership society" of the cowboy capitalists of the 21st century. It is also the bible of judges like Clarence Thomas and Antonio Scalia who have used Epstein's philosophy of takings to undo the Clean Water Act, the Endangered Species Act, and alter laws based on the public trust doctrine."

"My history with the Thomas case is a long one. In the early 1990s, along with my then-colleague at The Wall Street Journal Jane Mayer, I spent almost three years re-reporting every aspect of the Hill-Thomas imbroglio for a book on the subject, Strange Justice: The Selling of Clarence Thomas. Quickly, we uncovered a pattern: Clarence Thomas had, in fact, a clear habit of watching and talking about pornography, which, while not improper on its face, was at the heart of Hill's allegations of sexual harassment. She testified that at the Department of Education and the EEOC [Equal Employment Opportunity Commission], where she worked for Thomas, he had persisted in unwelcome sex talk at work. Often, he'd called her into his office to listen to him describe scenes from porn films featuring Long Dong Silver and women with freakishly large breasts."

"[After denying Anita Hill's testimony, Thomas challenged the Senate committee considering his Supreme Court appointment to investigate further] His bluff wasn't called. Many individuals we uncovered who knew about Thomas's habitual, erotically charged talk in the workplace were never contacted by the Senate Judiciary Committee or called as witnesses. We found three other women who had experiences with Thomas at the EEOC that were similar to Hill's, and four people who knew about his keen interest in porn but were never heard from publicly. The evidence that Thomas had perjured himself during the hearing was overwhelming."

"He is a clown in blackface sitting on the Supreme Court. He gets me that angry. He doesn't belong there. Ande saw the movie 12 Years as a Slave, you know, they were raped. And he says they had dignity as slaves or— My parents lost everything that th middle of their lives, in their thirties. His business, my father's business, our home, our freedom and we're supposed to call that dignified? Marched out of our homes at gun point. I mean, this man does not belong on the Supreme Court. He is an embarrassment. He is a disgrace to America."

"US Supreme Court justice Clarence Thomas in particular has critiqued the complexity of federal Indian law several times. But as at least one commentator noted, when court justices critique the "complexity" of federal Indian law, it seems to precede a restriction on tribal authority."

"For the evangelical left, those who suffer largely exist as mechanisms for others’ salvation, but not as beings with consciences of their own—or more precisely, they are allowed to have their own conscience if and only if it fits into their salvation model. Else, they can be considered as corrupted. The black man loses his “blackness,” which is a state of grace and nothing to do with skin color. Clarence Thomas isn’t “really” black but Bill Clinton is, in the same way that the Eucharist literally becomes the body of Christ."

"If the Framers had wanted a constitution that evolved by judicial ruling, Thomas says, they could have stuck with the unwritten British constitution that governed the American colonists in just that way for 150 years before the Revolution. But Americans chose a written constitution, whose meaning, as the Framers and the state ratifying conventions understood it, does not change—and whose purpose remains, as the Preamble states, to "secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity.""

"Bush's choice of Thomas caught most black leaders off guard. Few had the courage to say publicly that this was an act of cynical tokenism concealed by outright lies about Thomas being the most qualified candidate regardless of race. Thomas had an undistinguished record as a student (mere graduation from Yale Law School does not qualify one for the Supreme Court); he left thirteen thousand age discrimination cases dying on the vine for lack of investigation in his turbulent eight years at the EEOC; and his performance during his short fifteen months as an appellate court judge was mediocre. The very fact that no black leader could utter publicly that a black appointee for the Supreme Court was unqualified shows how captive they are to white racist stereotypes about black intellectual talent."

"One wonders what this Court waits for. We failed to settle this dispute before the election, and thus provide clear rules. Now we again fail to provide clear rules for future elections. The decision to leave election law hidden beneath a shroud of doubt is baffling. By doing nothing, we invite further confusion and erosion of voter confidence. Our fellow citizens deserve better and expect more of us. I respectfully dissent."

"The difference between me, along with most Black folks, and Clarence Thomas is that Thomas has decided to take his hurt feelings out on one of the most effective social justice policies in American history, while most Black people just learn to step over the low-account white folks clawing at our ankles. Most Black people strive to overcome racial injustice; Thomas was broken by it. Instead of blaming the white folks doing the oppressing, Thomas has decided to ally with them and blame the policy meant to break their exclusive access to power. He’s almost a tragic figure: a man who has adopted the white narrative about Black people so completely that he’s curdled into a mere spokesperson for that white narrative."

"[Thomas admitted to Sibley Memorial Hospital in Washington, DC], after experiencing flu-like symptoms. It is not COVID related."

"Clarence doesn't discuss his work with me, and I don't involve him in my work."

"In an interview at Catholic University last week, Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas said what he’s clearly been thinking for the past 30 years: Supreme Court precedents don’t matter, and he’s making things up as he goes along to fulfill his own political agenda. He didn’t say it in that way, of course. People would have noticed that. Instead, he couched his self-serving philosophy in legal jargon that will fly under the radar of most people, including journalists. Here’s what he said: “At some point we need to think about what we’re doing with stare decisis.… [I]t’s not some sort of talismanic deal where you can just say ‘stare decisis’ and not think, turn off the brain, right?” To translate: “Stare decisis” is a foundational legal principle in this country and all countries that follow a “common law” system. What it means, in simple terms, is that prior judicial rulings govern future judicial rulings. If a court rules, for instance, that “gay people have the same basic rights as everyone else in this country, including the right to marry other people,” then that ruling is supposed to govern all future cases concerning the rights of gay people. Thomas, apparently, doesn’t agree. Instead of respecting stare decisis and precedent, he is saying that older cases shouldn’t have the power to control newer ones. For Thomas, just because courts ruled that LGBTQ people should have rights in the past, including the right to marry, doesn’t mean he feels compelled to rule that they should keep them."

"The astute reader will note that at no point are judges supposed to say that prior precedent was wrong. They’re not supposed to come out and say, “We are overturning this old case, because we don’t like it anymore and desire different political and legal outcomes. Thank you for coming to my TED talk.” Congress is allowed to do that, but not the courts. Clarence Thomas is saying: To hell with all that. He knows that the normal way of dealing with stare decisis is not to “turn your brain off.” His problem is that the legitimate ways of overturning prior opinions doesn’t get him to where he wants to go. He can’t say anything has materially changed since, for instance, Obergefell v. Hodges, which recognized same-sex marriage. He can’t distinguish new marriage equality cases from the old one, and Stephen Miller hasn’t furnished him with a new constitutional amendment to outlaw the practice. But he certainly doesn’t want gay couples to get married. Stare decisis blocks him from stopping them, so he’s telling people to ignore stare decisis. Thomas thinks that some prior decisions were just wrong and he gets to decide what is wrong and what is right, even though nobody elected him to do that work. Here’s another quote from his Catholic University talk: “We never go to the front [to] see who’s driving the train, where is it going. And you could go up there in the engine room, find it’s an orangutan driving the train, but you want to follow that just because it’s a train.” First of all, I swear Thomas is the only Black public intellectual I am familiar with who uses simian analogies when describing something he thinks is stupid. They need to add him to the DSM as a new form of “self-loathing.”"

"Anyway… Thomas is saying that if he doesn’t like where the “train” of stare decisis is leading him, he can just get off and go in a different direction. Remember, Thomas’s war against the 20th century can’t achieve victory if old Supreme Court opinions have weight. In place of stare decisis, Thomas offers this invented framework: that “the precedent should be respectful of our legal tradition, and our country, and our laws, and be based on something, not just something somebody dreamt up and others went along with.” The problem is: The question of which precedents are “respectful of our legal tradition, our country, and our laws” can quickly devolve into what Clarence Thomas thinks is “respectful” of those traditions or laws. It’s completely ungrounded from anything real or provable. It’s not even textual. “Respect” means whatever the hell Thomas wants it to mean, at any given time."

"We’ve seen this in Thomas’s opinions in recent years. In 2022, he declared, in a separate but supporting opinion in the Dobbs case, that Roe v. Wade was not respectful of our legal traditions, but Loving v. Virginia is. Why? Well because Roe gave women rights, while Loving gave Thomas the right to marry his white wife, and if you have a better legal difference between those cases other than Thomas’s own personal preferences, I’d love to hear you explain it. Thomas has also decided (in this case, writing for the majority) that simple gun registration laws are not respectful of our traditions in this country, but he signed on to an opinion giving the president the powers of the very king we revolted against. You simply cannot chart a course through what passes for logic in Thomas’s head without understanding his preferred policy outcomes. If Thomas were the only justice who thought like this, it would be a containable problem. But the entire Republican cabal on the Supreme Court rules exactly in the way Thomas is talking about, with no respect for precedent or stare decisis. This coming term, the Republicans on the court are likely to overturn a voting rights precedent they set for themselves only a couple of years ago. The Republicans literally cannot be trusted to respect their own rulings."

"The entire Trump administration has been a “mask off” moment for the Supreme Court’s conservatives. It turns out, they don’t actually care about precedent (no matter how many times they lied and claimed to care during their Senate confirmation hearings). They don’t actually care about the text. They don’t actually care about judicial restraint. They want the political outcomes they want and they have the votes to do it. Thomas’s speech is a declaration that there is no judicial precedent that is safe from the current Republicans on the court. Stare decisis will not stand in their way of getting what they want. You could read the entire speech as a shot across the bow of Obergefell v. Hodges, and it is, but it’s also a rare moment where Thomas told the truth about what he and his friends are actually doing. They do not care about traditions, norms, or the very foundation of judicial decision making in a common law system. They only care about winning."

"That’s all going to be very bad for those of us who do not happen to be white cis-hetero men in the near term, but there is a silver lining. Thomas’s speech at Catholic University literally lays down the playbook for how to defeat him and all the evil and cruelty he has wrought during his time on the bench. According to Thomas, future Supreme Court justices do not have to wrestle with the precedents laid down by Thomas and his Roberts-court brethren. They do not have to distinguish future cases from the ones that are being decided today. They do not have to wait for Congress to pass new laws, or for the Constitution to be amended. They don’t have to stay on the train Clarence Thomas is driving. And I am here for that. By Thomas’s own admission, the power of the Roberts court dies the moment there are more liberals on the bench than Republicans. That could happen as soon as the next presidential election, if Democrats get their act together to take control of the Supreme Court. If stare decisis is dead, then it’s dead forever. What can’t happen is for future Democratic justices to try to resurrect it, to preserve the power of the people who killed it. Clarence Thomas will soon be the longest-serving justice in American history. It’s good to know that he thinks his opinions will not matter after he’s dead. On that, he and I agree."

"The ideas of liberty and equality have been an irresistible force in motivating leaders like Patrick Henry, Susan B. Anthony, and Abraham Lincoln, schoolteachers like Nathan Hale and Booker T. Washington, the Philippine Scouts who fought at Bataan, and the soldiers who scaled the bluff at Omaha Beach. If those ideas are worth fighting for -- and our history demonstrates that they are -- it cannot be true that the flag that uniquely symbolizes their power is not itself worthy of protection from unnecessary desecration."

"Great works of literature have frequently been produced by authors writing under assumed names. Despite readers' curiosity and the public's interest in identifying the creator of a work of art, an author generally is free to decide whether or not to disclose her true identity. The decision in favor of anonymity may be motivated by fear of economic or official retaliation, by concern about social ostracism, or merely by a desire to preserve as much of one's privacy as possible. Whatever the motivation may be, at least in the field of literary endeavor, the interest in having anonymous works enter the marketplace of ideas unquestionably outweighs any public interest in requiring disclosure as a condition of entry."

"On occasion, quite apart from any threat of persecution, an advocate may believe her ideas will be more persuasive if her readers are unaware of her identity. Anonymity thereby provides a way for a writer who may be personally unpopular to ensure that readers will not prejudge her message simply because they do not like its proponent."

"Under our Constitution, anonymous pamphleteering is not a pernicious, fraudulent practice, but an honorable tradition of advocacy and of dissent. Anonymity is a shield from the tyranny of the majority. … It thus exemplifies the purpose behind the Bill of Rights, and of the First Amendment in particular: to protect unpopular individuals from retaliation--and their ideas from suppression--at the hand of an intolerant society. The right to remain anonymous may be abused when it shields fraudulent conduct. But political speech by its nature will sometimes have unpalatable consequences, and, in general, our society accords greater weight to the value of free speech than to the dangers of its misuse."

"Money is property; it is not speech. Speech has the power to inspire volunteers to perform a multitude of tasks on a campaign trail, on a battleground, or even on a football field. Money, meanwhile, has the power to pay hired laborers to perform the same tasks. It does not follow, however, that the First Amendment provides the same measure of protection to the use of money to accomplish such goals as it provides to the use of ideas to achieve the same results."

"Time will one day heal the wound to that confidence that will be inflicted by today's decision. One thing, however, is certain. Although we may never know with complete certainty the identity of the winner of this year's presidential election, the identity of the loser is perfectly clear. It is the nation's confidence in the judge as an impartial guardian of the rule of law."

"After all, a district judge who gives harsh sentences to Yankees fans and lenient sentences to Red Sox fans would not be acting reasonably even if her procedural rulings were impeccable."

"A democracy cannot function effectively when its constituent members believe laws are being bought and sold."

"At bottom, the court's opinion is thus a rejection of the common sense of the American people, who have recognized a need to prevent corporations from undermining self-government since the founding, and who have fought against the distinctive corrupting potential of corporate electioneering since the days of Theodore Roosevelt. It is a strange time to repudiate that common sense. While American democracy is imperfect, few outside the majority of this court would have thought its flaws included a dearth of corporate money in politics."

"[B]y requiring that an execution be relatively painless, we necessarily protect the inmate from enduring any punishment that is comparable to the suffering inflicted on his victim. This trend, while appropriate and required by the Eighth Amendment's prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment, actually undermines the very premise on which public approval of the retribution rationale is based."

"A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms when serving in the militia shall not be infringed."

"All general business corporation statues appear to date from well after 1800.. The Framers thus took it as a given that corporations could be comprehensively regulated in the service of the public welfare. Unlike our colleagues, they had little trouble distinguishing corporations from human beings, and when they constitutionalized the right to free speech in the First Amendment, it was the free speech of individual Americans they had in mind. The fact that corporations are different from human beings might seem to need no elaboration, except that the majority opinion almost completely elides it…. Unlike natural persons, corporations have ‘limited liability’ for their owners and managers, ‘perpetual life,’ separation of ownership and control, ‘and favorable treatment of the accumulation of assets….’ Unlike voters in U.S. elections, corporations may be foreign controlled. ...It might be added that corporations have no consciences, no beliefs, no feelings, no thoughts, no desires. Corporations help structure and facilitate the activities of human beings, to be sure, and their ‘personhood’ often serves as a useful legal fiction. But they are not themselves members of ‘We the People’ by whom and for whom our Constitution was established."

"(TH: In Justice Stevens’ dissent in Citizens United, he pointed out that corporations in their modern form didn’t even exist when the Constitution was written in 1787 and got its first ten amendments in 1791, including the First which protects free speech)"

"In addition to this immediate drowning out of noncorporate voices, there may be deleterious effects that follow soon thereafter. Corporate ‘domination’ of electioneering can generate the impression that corporations dominate our democracy. When citizens turn on their televisions and radios before an election and hear only corporate electioneering, they may lose faith in their capacity, as citizens, to influence public policy. A Government captured by corporate interests, they may come to believe, will be neither responsive to their needs nor willing to give their views a fair hearing. The predictable result is cynicism and disenchantment: an increased perception that large spenders ‘call the tune’ and a reduced ‘willingness of voters to take part in democratic governance.’ To the extent that corporations are allowed to exert undue influence in electoral races, the speech of the eventual winners of those races may also be chilled. Politicians who fear that a certain corporation can make or break their reelection chances may be cowed into silence about that corporation. On a variety of levels, unregulated corporate electioneering might diminish the ability of citizens to ‘hold officials accountable to the people,’ and disserve the goal of a public debate that is ‘uninhibited, robust, and wide-open.’"

"Even worse than the short-term effect of a corporation’s dominating an election or a ballot initiative, Stevens said (as if he had a time machine to look at us now), was the fact that corporations corrupting politics would, inevitably, cause average working Americans — the 95 percent who make less than $100,000 a year — to conclude that their “democracy” is now rigged. The result, Stevens wrote, is that average people would simply stop participating in politics, stop being informed about politics, and stop voting…or become angry and cynical. Our democracy, he suggested, would be immeasurably damaged and ultimately vulnerable to corporate-supported demagogues and oligarchs. Our constitutional republic, if Citizens United stands, could wither and could die."

"I work not only for the O.J.s, but also the No Js."

"If it doesn't fit, you must acquit."

"You could kill your wife and there's no such thing as 25 to life as long as you've got the cash to pay for Cochran."

"I loved him as a good Christian man; I look at Johnnie as a great Christian. I knew him as that. He was a great guy."

"She got more niggas off than Cochran."

"Death had to take him in his sleep, for if Roosevelt had been awake, there would have been a fight."

"Once there were two brothers. One ran away to sea, the other was elected Vice President, and nothing was ever heard of either of them again."

"Money will accomplish much in business, love and war but it isn't worth a cent in nature. You could plant all the doubloons lost in the Spanish Main on a New England farm and you would not raise a single ear of corn the more therefor. You could take the golden eagles of America and put them in the alfalfa fields of Indiana and you would not get a single blade more of grass. The moral is that nature has her own way of fixing valuation; and her valuation is the way of return made from the soil. She does not care the least what men may say, by way of trade and barter, that she is worth. Her worth in her own scales consists in her ability to produce something that will minister to the needs, the comforts and even to the luxuries of her children."

"No, there is no world-wide standard for the determination of provincialism. There is only one standard by which to judge men and women, and that standard is not so much one of brains and education as it is of culture and heart. Kindness seems to be the one golden metewand by which to measure how really civilized and catholic one may be."

"There was not one of my blood, in or out of the Union Army who was not either serving and sacrificing at home or suffering and dying among the hills and valleys of the southland for the preservation of the Union. And yet, so bitter was the politics of the time that they had to undergo the suspicion of being disloyal to their country because they did not vote the Republican ticket. My grandfather and my father were notified by the Methodist preacher whose church they attended that he would have to strike their names off the roll if they continued to vote the Democratic ticket. My grandfather, as a fiery Virginian, announced that he was willing to take his chance on Hell but never on the Republican party."

"The labor unions of Indiana proceeded to meet and resolve. They resolved in such violent and vicious language that no partisan press could be found willing to print the resolutions. Long afterward I learned that I was shadowed for six months by Secret Service men in the fear that I might be assaulted by some over-zealous union man. Of this I was not aware at the time, or I should have taken steps to have prevented it. Whether I am a Presbyterian or a fatalist I do not know, but I do know that if I am to be shot, I will never be hanged."

"In the city of Denver, while I was vice-president, a big husky policeman kept following me around until I asked him what he was doing. He said he was guarding my person. I said: "Your labor is in vain. Nobody was ever crazy enough to shoot at a vice-president. If you will go away and find somebody to shoot at me, I'll go down in history as the first vice-president who ever attracted enough attention even to have a crank shoot at him.""

"I make no pretense to accuracy. I shall be quite content if the sensibilities of no one are wounded by anything I may reduce to type."

"The Vice-President's Chamber is adjacent to the Senate Chamber, and so small that to survive it is necessary to keep the door open in order to obtain the necessary cubic feet of air. When the vice-president is in the room [the Capitol Guides] go by with their guests, stop and point him out, as though he were a curiosity.I stood this for about as long as I could, and then went to the door one day, and said: "If you look on me as a wild animal, be kind enough to throw peanuts at me; but if you are really desirous of seeing me, come in and shake hands." In that way I think I restored myself to the position I have always desired to occupy; that of an American, who looks up to nobody, looks down upon nobody, but tries to keep a conscience clean enough that he can look everybody in the face."

"As in his public affairs, so in his private life the American rarely prepares himself for the future. He is wholly unwilling to have anything transmitted to him by water that he can get by rail. It irks him to wait the slow process of freighting when there is an express car coming to his town, and if somebody will soon discover how to deliver by aeroplane, that is the way he will obtain what he wants. He never wants it until he wants it, and when he wants it, he wants it at once. The farmer does not look over his machinery in the winter time to ascertain what it needs in the way of repair; but waits until a week or ten days before he needs it and then telegraphs for the repair parts to be sent by express."

"Bristow hasn't hit it yet. What this country needs is a good five-cent cigar."

"An unfriendly fairy godmother presented him with a keen sense of humor. Nothing is more fatal in politics."

"When government disappears, it's not as if paradise will take its place. When governments are gone, other interests will take their place."

"We are on the cusp of this time where I can say, "I speak as a citizen of the world" without others saying, "God, what a nut.""

"One thing we know about incentives is you can't incent a dead person. No matter what we do, Hawthorne will not produce any more works, [even if] we can give him all the money in the world."

"Americans have been selling this view around the world: that progress comes from perfect protection of intellectual property. Notwithstanding the fact that the most innovative and progressive space we've seen — the Internet — has been the place where intellectual property has been least respected. You know, facts don't get in the way of this ideology."

"Our problem is that lawyers have taught us that there is only one kind of economic market for innovation out there and it is this kind of isolated inventor who comes up with an idea and then needs to be protected. That is a good picture of maybe what pharmaceutical industry does. It's a bad picture of what goes on, for example, in the context of software development, in particular. In the context of software development, where you have sequential and complementary developments, patents create an extraordinarily damaging influence on innovation and on the process of developing and bringing new ideas to market. So the particular mistake that lawyers have compounded is the unwillingness to discriminate among different kinds of innovation. We really need to think quite pragmatically about whether intellectual property is helping or hurting, and if you can't show it's going to help, then there is no reason to issue this government-backed monopoly."

"There’s going to be an i-9/11 event. Which doesn’t necessarily mean an Al Qaeda attack, it means an event where the instability or the insecurity of the internet becomes manifest during a malicious event which then inspires the government into a response. You’ve got to remember that after 9/11 the government drew up the Patriot Act within 20 days and it was passed. … So I was having dinner with Richard Clarke and I asked him if there is an equivalent, is there an i-Patriot Act just sitting waiting for some substantial event as an excuse to radically change the way the internet works. He said “of course there is”."

"I received an email from JSTOR four days before Aaron died, from the president of JSTOR, announcing, celebrating that JSTOR was going to release all of these journal articles to anybody around the world who wanted access — exactly what Aaron was fighting for. And I didn’t have time to send it to Aaron; I was on — I was traveling. But I looked forward to seeing him again — I had just seen him the week before — and celebrating that this is what had happened. So, all of us think there are a thousand things we could have done, a thousand things we could have done, and we have to do, because Aaron Swartz is now an icon, an ideal. He is what we will be fighting for, all of us, for the rest of our lives. … Every time you saw Aaron, he was surrounded by five or 10 different people who loved and respected and worked with him. He was depressed because he was increasingly recognizing that the idealism he brought to this fight maybe wasn’t enough. When he saw all of his wealth gone, and he recognized his parents were going to have to mortgage their house so he could afford a lawyer to fight a government that treated him as if he were a 9/11 terrorist, as if what he was doing was threatening the infrastructure of the United States, when he saw that and he recognized how — how incredibly difficult that fight was going to be, of course he was depressed. Now, you know, I’m not a psychiatrist. I don’t know whether there was something wrong with him because of — you know, beyond the rational reason he had to be depressed, but I don’t — I don’t — I don’t have patience for people who want to say, "Oh, this was just a crazy person; this was just a person with a psychological problem who killed himself." No. This was somebody — this was somebody who was pushed to the edge by what I think of as a kind of bullying by our government. A bullying by our government."

"A time is marked not so much by ideas that are argued about as by ideas that are taken for granted. The character of an era hangs upon what needs no defense. Power runs with ideas that only the crazy would draw into doubt. The "taken for granted" is the test of sanity; "what everyone knows" is the line between us and them. This means that sometimes a society gets stuck. Sometimes these unquestioned ideas interfere, as the cost of questioning becomes too great. In these times, the hardest task for social or political activists is to find a way to get people to wonder again about what we all believe is true. The challenge is to sow doubt."

"All around us are the consequences of the most significant technological, and hence cultural, revolution in generations. This revolution has produced the most powerful and diverse spur to innovation of any in modern times. Yet a set of ideas about a central aspect of this prosperity — "property" — confuses us. This confusion is leading us to change the environment in ways that will change the prosperity. Believing we know what makes prosperity work, ignoring the nature of the actual prosperity all around, we change the rules within which the Internet revolution lives. These changes will end the revolution."

"We live in a world with "free" content, and this freedom is not an imperfection. We listen to the radio without paying for the songs we hear; we hear friends humming tunes that they have not licensed. We tell jokes that reference movie plots without the permission of the directors. We read our children books, borrowed from a library, without paying the original copyright holder for the performance rights."

"In arguing for increasing content owners' control over content users, it's not sufficient to say "They didn't pay for this use.""

"Creation always involves building upon something else. There is no art that doesn't reuse. And there will be less art if every reuse is taxed by the appropriator. Monopoly controls have been the exception in free societies; they have been the rule in closed societies."

"While control is needed, and perfectly warranted, our bias should be clear up front: Monopolies are not justified by theory; they should be permitted only when justified by facts. If there is no solid basis for extending a certain monopoly protection, then we should not extend that protection. This does not mean that every copyright must prove its value initially. That would be a far too cumbersome system of control. But it does mean that every system or category of copyright or patent should prove its worth. Before the monopoly should be permitted, there must be reason to believe it will do some good — for society, and not just for monopoly holders."

"The current term of protection for software is the life of an author plus 70 years, or, if it's work-for-hire, a total of 95 years. This is a bastardization of the Constitution's requirement that copyright be for "limited times." By the time Apple's Macintosh operating system finally falls into the public domain, there will be no machine that could possibly run it. The term of copyright for software is effectively unlimited."

"While the creative works from the 16th century can still be accessed and used by others, the data in some software programs from the 1990s is already inaccessible. Once a company that produces a certain product goes out of business, it has no simple way to uncover how its product encoded data. The code is thus lost, and the software is inaccessible. Knowledge has been destroyed."

"I would dramatically reduce the safeguards for software — from the ordinary term of 95 years to an initial term of 5 years, renewable once. And I would extend that government-backed protection only if the author submitted a duplicate of the source code to be held in escrow while the work was protected. Once the copyright expired, that escrowed version would be publicly available from the copyright office. Most programmers should like this change. No code lives for 10 years, and getting access to the source code of even orphaned software projects would benefit all. More important, it would unlock the knowledge built into this protected code for others to build upon as they see fit. Software would thus be like every other creative work — open for others to see and to learn from."

"The problems with software are just examples of the problems found generally with creativity. Our trend in copyright law has been to enclose as much as we can; the consequence of this enclosure is a stifling of creativity and innovation. If the Internet teaches us anything, it is that great value comes from leaving core resources in a commons, where they're free for people to build upon as they see fit."

"If you understand this refrain, you're gonna' understand everything I want to say to you today. It has four parts:"

"In 1774, free culture was born. In a case called Donaldson v. Beckett in the House of Lords in England, free culture was made because copyright was stopped. In 1710, the statute had said that copyright should be for a limited term of just 14 years. But in the 1740s, when Scottish publishers started reprinting classics — you gotta' love the Scots — the London publishers said "Stop!" They said, "Copyright is forever!"... These publishers demanded a common-law copyright that would be forever. In 1769, in a case called Miller v. Taylor, they won their claim, but just five years later, in Donaldson, Miller was reversed, and for the first time in history, the works of Shakespeare were freed, freed from the control of a monopoly of publishers. Freed culture was the result of that case."

"That free culture was carried to America; that was our birth — 1790. We established a regime that left creativity unregulated. Now it was unregulated because copyright law only covered "printing." Copyright law did not control derivative work. And copyright law granted this protection for the limited time of 14 years."

"Forget the 18th century, the 19th century, even at the birth of the 20th century. Here's my favorite example, here: 1928, my hero, Walt Disney, created this extraordinary work, the birth of Mickey Mouse in the form of Steamboat Willie. But what you probably don't recognize about Steamboat Willie and his emergence into Mickey Mouse is that in 1928, Walt Disney, to use the language of the Disney Corporation today, "stole" Willie from Buster Keaton's "Steamboat Bill." It was a parody, a take-off; it was built upon Steamboat Bill. Steamboat Bill was produced in 1928 — no 14 years — just take it, rip, mix, and burn, as he did to produce the Disney empire."

"Now the Disney Corporation could do this because that culture lived in a commons, an intellectual commons, a cultural commons, where people could freely take and build. It was a lawyer-free zone. It was culture, which you didn't need the permission of someone else to take and build upon. That was the character of creativity at the birth of the last century. It was built upon a constitutional requirement that protection be for limited times, and it was originally limited. Fourteen years, if the author lived, then 28, then in 1831 it went to 42, then in 1909 it went to 56, and then magically, starting in 1962, look — no hands, the term expands. Eleven times in the last 40 years it has been extended for existing works — not just for new works that are going to be created, but existing works. The most recent is the Sonny Bono copyright term extension act."

"The meaning of this pattern is absolutely clear to those who pay to produce it. The meaning is: No one can do to the Disney Corporation what Walt Disney did to the Brothers Grimm. That though we had a culture where people could take and build upon what went before, that's over. There is no such thing as the public domain in the minds of those who have produced these 11 extensions these last 40 years because now culture is owned."

"Remember the refrain: We always build on the past; the past always tries to stop us. Freedom is about stopping the past, but we have lost that ideal."

"We have a massive system to regulate creativity. A massive system of lawyers regulating creativity as copyright law has expanded in unrecognizable forms, going from a regulation of publishing to a regulation of copying."

"Law and technology produce, together, a kind of regulation of creativity we've not seen before."

"Here's a simple copyright lesson: Law regulates copies. What's that mean? Well, before the Internet, think of this as a world of all possible uses of a copyrighted work. Most of them are unregulated. Talking about fair use, this is not fair use; this is unregulated use. To read is not a fair use; it's an unregulated use. To give it to someone is not a fair use; it's unregulated. To sell it, to sleep on top of it, to do any of these things with this text is unregulated. Now, in the center of this unregulated use, there is a small bit of stuff regulated by the copyright law; for example, publishing the book — that's regulated. And then within this small range of things regulated by copyright law, there's this tiny band before the Internet of stuff we call fair use: Uses that otherwise would be regulated but that the law says you can engage in without the permission of anybody else. For example, quoting a text in another text — that's a copy, but it's a still fair use. That means the world was divided into three camps, not two: Unregulated uses, regulated uses that were fair use, and the quintessential copyright world. Three categories. Enter the Internet. Every act is a copy, which means all of these unregulated uses disappear. Presumptively, everything you do on your machine on the network is a regulated use. And now it forces us into this tiny little category of arguing about, "What about the fair uses? What about the fair uses?" I will say the word: To hell with the fair uses. What about the unregulated uses we had of culture before this massive expansion of control?"

"Now, here's the thing you've got to remember. You've got to see this. This is the point. (And Jack Valenti misses this.) Here's the point: Never has it been more controlled ever. Take the addition, the changes, the copyrights turn, take the changes to copyrights scope, put it against the background of an extraordinarily concentrated structure of media, and you produce the fact that never in our history have fewer people controlled more of the evolution of our culture. Never."

"Here's a story: There was a documentary filmmaker who was making a documentary film about education in America. And he's shooting across this classroom with lots of people, kids, who are completely distracted at the television in the back of the classroom. When they get back to the editing room, they realize that on the television, you can barely make out the show for two seconds; it's "The Simpsons," Homer Simpson on the screen. So they call up Matt Groening, who was a friend of the documentary filmmaker, and say, you know, Is this going to be a problem? It's only a couple seconds. Matt says, No, no, no, it's not going to be a problem, call so and so. So they called so and so, and so and so said call so and so. Eventually, the so and so turns out to be the lawyers, so when they got to the lawyers, they said, Is this going to be a problem? It's a documentary film. It's about education. It's a couple seconds. The so and so said 25,000 bucks. 25,000 bucks?! It's a couple seconds! What do you mean 25,000 bucks? The so and so said, I don't give a goddamn what it is for. $25,000 bucks or change your movie. Now you look at this and you say this is insane. It's insane. And if it is only Hollywood that has to deal with this, OK, that's fine. Let them be insane. The problem is their insane rules are now being applied to the whole world. This insanity of control is expanding as everything you do touches copyrights."

"It's insane. It's extreme. It's controlled by political interests. It has no justification in the traditional values that justify legal regulation. And we've done nothing about it. We're bigger than they are. We've got rights on our side. And we've done nothing about it. We let them control this debate. Here's the refrain that leads to this: They win because we've done nothing to stop it."

"J. C. Watts is the only black member of the Republican Party in leadership. He's going to resign from Congress. He's been there seven and a half years. He's had enough. Nobody can believe it. Nobody in Washington can believe it. ... In an interview two days ago, Watts said, Here's the problem with Washington: "If you are explaining, you are losing." If you are explaining, you're losing. It's a bumper sticker culture. People have to get it like that, and if they don't, if it takes three seconds to make them understand, you're off their radar screen. Three seconds to understand, or you lose. This is our problem. Six years after this battle began, we're still explaining. We're still explaining and we are losing. They frame this as a massive battle to stop theft, to protect property. ... They extend copyrights perpetually. They don't get how that in itself is a form of theft. A theft of our common culture. We have failed in getting them to see what the issues here are and that's why we live in this place where a tradition speaks of freedom and their controls take it away."

"If you don't do something now, this freedom that you built, that you spend your life coding, this freedom will be taken away. Either by those who see you as a threat, who then invoke the system of law we call patents, or by those who take advantage of the extraordinary expansion of control that the law of copyright now gives them over innovation. Either of these two changes through law will produce a world where your freedom has been taken away. And, If you can't fight for your freedom . . . you don't deserve it."

"This is not a left and right issue. This is the important thing to recognize: This is not about conservatives versus liberals. In our case, in Eldred, we have this brief filed by 17 economists, including Milton Friedman, James Buchanan, Ronald Kost, Ken Arrow, you know, lunatics, right? Left-wing liberals, right? Friedman said he'd only join if the word "no-brainer" existed in the brief somewhere, like this was a complete no-brainer for him. This is not about left and right. This is about right and wrong. That's what this battle is."

"I believe it would be right for common sense to revolt against the extreme claims made today on behalf of "intellectual property." What the law demands today is increasingly as silly as a sheriff arresting an airplane for trespass. But the consequences of this silliness will be much more profound."

"A free culture has been our past, but it will only be our future if we change the path we are on right now. Like Stallman's arguments for free software, an argument for free culture stumbles on a confusion that is hard to avoid, and even harder to understand. A free culture is not a culture without property; it is not a culture in which artists don't get paid. A culture without property, or in which creators can't get paid, is anarchy, not freedom. Anarchy is not what I advance here. Instead, the free culture that I defend in this book is a balance between anarchy and control. A free culture, like a free market, is filled with property. It is filled with rules of property and contract that get enforced by the state. But just as a free market is perverted if its property becomes feudal, so too can a free culture be queered by extremism in the property rights that define it. That is what I fear about our culture today. It is against that extremism that this book is written."

"There has never been a time in history when more of our "culture" was as "owned" as it is now. And yet there has never been a time when the concentration of power to control the uses of culture has been as unquestioningly accepted as it is now."

"Overregulation stifles creativity. It smothers innovation. It gives dinosaurs a veto over the future. It wastes the extraordinary opportunity for a democratic creativity that digital technology enables. In addition to these important harms, there is one more that was important to our forebears, but seems forgotten today. Overregulation corrupts citizens and weakens the rule of law. The war that is being waged today is a war of prohibition. As with every war of prohibition, it is targeted against the behavior of a very large number of citizens. According to The New York Times, 43 million Americans downloaded music in May 2002. According to the RIAA, the behavior of those 43 million Americans is a felony. We thus have a set of rules that transform 20 percent of America into criminals."

"By insisting on the Constitution's limits to copyright, obviously Eldred was not endorsing piracy. Indeed, in an obvious sense, he was fighting a kind of piracy — piracy of the public domain. When Robert Frost wrote his work and when Walt Disney created Mickey Mouse, the maximum copyright term was just fifty-six years. Because of interim changes, Frost and Disney had already enjoyed a seventy-five-year monopoly for their work. They had gotten the benefit of the bargain that the Constitution envisions: In exchange for a monopoly protected for fifty-six years, they created new work. But now these entities were using their power — expressed through the power of lobbyists' money — to get another twenty-year dollop of monopoly. That twenty-year dollop would be taken from the public domain. Eric Eldred was fighting a piracy that affects us all."

"Some people view the public domain with contempt. In their brief before the Supreme Court, the Nashville Songwriters Association wrote that the public domain is nothing more than "legal piracy." But it is not piracy when the law allows it; and in our constitutional system, our law requires it. Some may not like the Constitution's requirements, but that doesn't make the Constitution a pirate's charter. As we've seen, our constitutional system requires limits on copyright as a way to assure that copyright holders do not too heavily influence the development and distribution of our culture. Yet, as Eric Eldred discovered, we have set up a system that assures that copyright terms will be repeatedly extended, and extended, and extended. We have created the perfect storm for the public domain. Copyrights have not expired, and will not expire, so long as Congress is free to be bought to extend them again."

"It is valuable copyrights that are responsible for terms being extended. Mickey Mouse and "Rhapsody in Blue." These works are too valuable for copyright owners to ignore. But the real harm to our society from copyright extensions is not that Mickey Mouse remains Disney's. Forget Mickey Mouse. Forget Robert Frost. Forget all the works from the 1920s and 1930s that have continuing commercial value. The real harm of term extension comes not from these famous works. The real harm is to the works that are not famous, not commercially exploited, and no longer available as a result."

"Of all the creative work produced by humans anywhere, a tiny fraction has continuing commercial value. For that tiny fraction, the copyright is a crucially important legal device. For that tiny fraction, the copyright creates incentives to produce and distribute the creative work. For that tiny fraction, the copyright acts as an "engine of free expression." But even for that tiny fraction, the actual time during which the creative work has a commercial life is extremely short. As I've indicated, most books go out of print within one year. The same is true of music and film. Commercial culture is sharklike. It must keep moving. And when a creative work falls out of favor with the commercial distributors, the commercial life ends."

"Now that copyrights can be just about a century long, the inability to know what is protected and what is not protected becomes a huge and obvious burden on the creative process. If the only way a library can offer an Internet exhibit about the New Deal is to hire a lawyer to clear the rights to every image and sound, then the copyright system is burdening creativity in a way that has never been seen before because there are no formalities."

"The most powerful and sexy and well loved of lobbies really has as its aim not the protection of "property" but the rejection of a tradition. Their aim is not simply to protect what is theirs. Their aim is to assure that all there is is what is theirs. It is not hard to understand why the warriors take this view. It is not hard to see why it would benefit them if the competition of the public domain tied to the Internet could somehow be quashed."

"A simple idea blinds us, and under the cover of darkness, much happens that most of us would reject if any of us looked. So uncritically do we accept the idea of property in ideas that we don't even notice how monstrous it is to deny ideas to a people who are dying without them. So uncritically do we accept the idea of property in culture that we don't even question when the control of that property removes our ability, as a people, to develop our culture democratically. Blindness becomes our common sense. And the challenge for anyone who would reclaim the right to cultivate our culture is to find a way to make this common sense open its eyes. So far, common sense sleeps. There is no revolt. Common sense does not yet see what there could be to revolt about."

"When it has become silly to suppose that the role of our government should be to "seek balance," then count me with the silly, for that means that this has become quite serious indeed. If it should be obvious to everyone that the government does not seek balance, that the government is simply the tool of the most powerful lobbyists, that the idea of holding the government to a different standard is absurd, that the idea of demanding of the government that it speak truth and not lies is just naïve, then who have we, the most powerful democracy in the world, become?"

"It might be crazy to expect a high government official to speak the truth. It might be crazy to believe that government policy will be something more than the handmaiden of the most powerful interests. It might be crazy to argue that we should preserve a tradition that has been part of our tradition for most of our history — free culture. If this is crazy, then let there be more crazies. Soon."

"The danger in media concentration comes not from the concentration, but instead from the feudalism that this concentration, tied to the change in copyright, produces. It is not just that there are a few powerful companies that control an ever expanding slice of the media. It is that this concentration can call upon an equally bloated range of rights — property rights of a historically extreme form — that makes their bigness bad."

"We Americans have a long history of fighting "big," wisely or not. That we could be motivated to fight "big" again is not something new. It would be something new, and something very important, if an equal number could be rallied to fight the increasing extremism built within the idea of "intellectual property." Not because balance is alien to our tradition; indeed, as I've argued, balance is our tradition. But because the muscle to think critically about the scope of anything called "property" is not well exercised within this tradition anymore. If we were Achilles, this would be our heel. This would be the place of our tragedy."

"I've told a dark story. The truth is more mixed. A technology has given us a new freedom. Slowly, some begin to understand that this freedom need not mean anarchy. We can carry a free culture into the twenty-first century, without artists losing and without the potential of digital technology being destroyed. ... Common sense must revolt. It must act to free culture. Soon, if this potential is ever to be realized."

"Common sense is with the copyright warriors because the debate so far has been framed at the extremes — as a grand either/or: either property or anarchy, either total control or artists won't be paid. If that really is the choice, then the warriors should win. The mistake here is the error of the excluded middle. There are extremes in this debate, but the extremes are not all that there is. There are those who believe in maximal copyright — "All Rights Reserved" — and those who reject copyright — "No Rights Reserved." The "All Rights Reserved" sorts believe that you should ask permission before you "use" a copyrighted work in any way. The "No Rights Reserved" sorts believe you should be able to do with content as you wish, regardless of whether you have permission or not. ... What's needed is a way to say something in the middle — neither "all rights reserved" nor "no rights reserved" but "some rights reserved" — and thus a way to respect copyrights but enable creators to free content as they see fit. In other words, we need a way to restore a set of freedoms that we could just take for granted before."

"We will not reclaim a free culture by individual action alone. It will also take important reforms of laws. We have a long way to go before the politicians will listen to these ideas and implement these reforms. But that also means that we have time to build awareness around the changes that we need."

"I'm a lawyer. I make lawyers for a living. I believe in the law. I believe in the law of copyright. Indeed, I have devoted my life to working in law, not because there are big bucks at the end but because there are ideals at the end that I would love to live. Yet much of this book has been a criticism of lawyers, or the role lawyers have played in this debate. The law speaks to ideals, but it is my view that our profession has become too attuned to the client. And in a world where the rich clients have one strong view, the unwillingness of the profession to question or counter that one strong view queers the law. The evidence of this bending is compelling. I'm attacked as a "radical" by many within the profession, yet the positions that I am advocating are precisely the positions of some of the most moderate and significant figures in the history of this branch of the law."

"The legal system doesn't work. Or more accurately, it doesn't work for anyone except those with the most resources. Not because the system is corrupt. I don't think our legal system (at the federal level, at least) is at all corrupt. I mean simply because the costs of our legal system are so astonishingly high that justice can practically never be done."

"The law should regulate in certain areas of culture — but it should regulate culture only where that regulation does good. Yet lawyers rarely test their power, or the power they promote, against this simple pragmatic question: "Will it do good?" When challenged about the expanding reach of the law, the lawyer answers, "Why not?" We should ask, "Why?" Show me why your regulation of culture is needed. Show me how it does good. And until you can show me both, keep your lawyers away."

"We, the most powerful democracy in the world, have developed a strong norm against talking about politics. It's fine to talk about politics with people you agree with. But it is rude to argue about politics with people you disagree with. Political discourse becomes isolated, and isolated discourse becomes more extreme. We say what our friends want to hear, and hear very little beyond what our friends say."

""Writing" is the Latin of our times. The modern language of the people is video and sound."

"The civil libertarians among us would rather defend the Constitution than protect our nation’s security."

"This country does not discriminate. No president, no officer in this country should hold office that has any hint of treating people differently because of the color of their skin or where they came from and that kind of thing. We believe in equality and fair treatment and that's the moral principle that we adhere to as a nation."

"I love that program (asset forfeiture). We had so much fun doing that, taking drug dealers' money and passing it out to people trying to put drug dealers in jail. What's wrong with that?"

"We don't pay judges to think; we pay judges to rule on the law."

"Senator Sessions has not demonstrated a commitment to a central requirement of the job -- to aggressively pursue the congressional mandate of civil rights, equal rights, and justice for all. In fact, at numerous times in his career, he has demonstrated a hostility toward these convictions, and has worked to frustrate attempts to advance these ideals."

"Everybody knows that the war on drugs, as has been fought since the 1980s, has had a disproportionate negative impact on specific community: black communities, Latino communities. Everyone knows that. So, what Jeff Sessions is doing is engaged in—or he’s advocating being engaged in racial discrimination. So let’s call Jeff Sessions what he is. Jeff Sessions is a racist, if he takes on this action. It’s clear. We know it. So let’s stop playing around with it. Jeff Sessions is allowing us or is using drug policy to separate the people who we like from the people who we don’t like. And it provides a way to go after those people we don’t like, usually poor minority folks, without explicitly saying we don’t like those people. And that’s how drug law—that’s how drug law or drug policy has been enforced in this country. And so, if we allow Sessions to turn back the hands of time, then shame on all of us. The blood is on all of our hands, because we know the consequences of his proposed actions...before 2012, we were arresting people for marijuana in Colorado, in Washington and those other states. We’re no longer doing that. Now we’re saying it’s OK. It was always OK. It’s just that our laws were not in line. Now we’re doing—now we’re arresting people for things like cocaine, heroin and those sorts of things, sending people to jail for extended periods of time. Now, this is not to say that we should legalize drugs. That’s not the argument here. We certainly should not be sending people to jail for those extended periods that Jeff Sessions is advocating for. And he’s doing so because he’s going after people who we don’t care for in the United States."

"we are all concerned about mass incarceration in the country today. If you want to know how we got there, right now what we’re doing, with people like Jeff Sessions and that guy in the White House, is how we got there. And they’re trying to ensure that we go back there, in part because it’s going to affect primarily, negatively affect, black people and brown people in this country. When I say “racist,” I mean when people who support policies and their behaviors are in such a way that one group disproportionately is unjustly treated. And that’s what we have going on right now. So when we have Jeff Sessions saying this sort of thing, the consequences will be racial discrimination. And he’s supporting that kind of policy or that action. That makes him a racist."

"Jeff Sessions, then-Attorney General of the United States, told prosecutors in May of 2018 to go after the children. "We need to take away children," Sessions said, according to notes of a meeting obtained by The New York Times, "If [you] care about kids, don't bring them in. Won't give amnesty to people with kids." The policy provoked a colossal public backlash, doing immense damage to the perception of the federal deportation machine, a bipartisan edifice erected by immigration hawks from both parties. (p 152 "Not the Right Way")"

"Stay focused. Talk about things that’ll matter to the people, you know? It’s the economy, stupid."

"Let me buy a [security] pass … so that they can scan me and and search me and measure my penis, then let me get on the plane."

"John McCain, if you liked the last eight, you are going to love the next four."

"You can call the dogs in, wet the fire, and leave the house. The hunt's over."

"[On Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama] If she gave him one of her cojones, they'd both have two."

"Mr. Richardson’s endorsement came right around the anniversary of the day when Judas sold out for 30 pieces of silver, so I think the timing is appropriate, if ironic."

"Whenever I hear a campaign talk about a need to energize the base, that's a campaign that's going down the toilet. It's a pretty good indication that they're not eating up any territory, they can't get anybody in the center to support them, they're getting shelled back into their own bunker."

"[Hollywood] hates America."

"Who cares? Sometimes you need rebirth. (On the destruction of America)"

"Washington is a dirty diaper. It's time for a change."

"Hurricane [Katrina] hit the Gulf Coast and destroyed much of the Gulf Coast — that was an act of God … Now what happened to New Orleans, that was a complete failure of the federal government. Complete negligence by the feds."

"I didn’t just experiment with marijuana — if you know what I mean."

"Yeah, I graduated with a 4.0... blood alcohol level."

"Back in 2000 a Republican friend warned me that if I voted for Al Gore and he won, the stock market would tank, we'd lose millions of jobs, and our military would be totally overstretched. You know what? I did vote for Al Gore, he did win, and I'll be damned if all those things didn't come true!"

"Republicans want smaller government for the same reason crooks want fewer cops: it's easier to get away with murder."

"Between Paoli and Penn Hills, Pennsylvania is Alabama without the blacks. They didn't film The Deer Hunter there for nothing -- the state has the second-highest concentration of NRA members, behind Texas."

"Look, if George W. Bush and his Republican cronies walked on water, I'd be the guy out there yelling that they couldn't swim. But don't take it from me: we've now heard it from the military commanders and our intelligence community: George Bush's actions in Iraq have not made us safer. They've done the opposite."

"What I'm suggesting is, stand for yourself, be for something, and the hell with it. Because the hand-wringers and the editorialists and the sigh-and-pontificate crowd will be against you, whatever you do."

"Drag a hundred-dollar bill through a trailer park, you never know what you'll find."

"Elections are about fucking your enemies. Winning is about fucking your friends."

"At the beginning of the Clinton administration in the early 1990s, adviser James Carville was stunned at the power the bond market had over the government. If he came back, Carville said: I used to think if there was reincarnation, I wanted to come back as the president or the pope or a .400 baseball hitter. But now I want to come back as the bond market. You can intimidate everybody."

"When your opponent is drowning, throw the son of a bitch an anvil."

"Why does a dog lick his dick? Because he can. Why does Congress spend money like that? Because it can."

"Sign on the wall in the 1992 Clinton campaign headquarters : The economy, stupid."

"James Carville was one person I was certain I’d dislike when I sat down to interview him in the early spring of 1996. Carville was a famous partisan. He ran Bill Clinton’s presidential campaign and shamelessly shilled for the Democratic Party. Watching him from afar, Carville struck me as a transparent fraud. What I discovered in talking to him was that James Carville was indeed a fraud, but openly so, in the most honest and genuine way. Over time, Carville wound up one of my favorite people in the world, one of the few friends I’ve gone to repeatedly for serious life advice. I haven’t taken a new job in twenty years without calling him first. James Carville is a genuinely wise man. What a shock that was to discover. Life is full of happy surprises like that, thank God. They more than compensate for the rest."

"I am more strongly confirmed than ever in the belief that the time devoted to chess is literally frittered away. It is, to be sure, a most exhilarating sport, but it is only a sport; and it is not to be wondered at that such as have been passionately addicted to the charming pastime should one day ask themselves whether sober reason does not advise its utter dereliction."

"Chess never has been and never can be aught but a recreation. It should not be indulged in to the detriment of other and more serious avocations."

"It [chess] is not only the most delightful and scientific, but the most moral of amusements."

"It [chess] is eminently and emphatically the philosopher's game."

"Let the chessboard supercede the card table, and a great improvement will be visible in the morals of the community."

"Anderssen voiced it well when asked why he did not play as brilliantly as usual in his game with Morphy, when he replied: "Morphy will not let me.""

"Paul Morphy was the greatest chess player that ever lived. Every student of the game, who has delved into the stories of the past, realizes that no one ever was so far superior to the players of his time, or ever defeated his opponents with such ease, and no one ever offered knight odds to the men who considered themselves his equal."

"So still was he, that but for the searching intellect which glittered in his full dark eye, you might have taken him for a carven image as he pondered his moves. His bearing was mild and that of a refined gentleman, and he dealt the most crushing blows on his adversary with an almost womanly ease and grace."

"...Morphy was stronger than anyone he played with, including Anderssen"

"Morphy's principal strength does not rest upon his power of combination but in his position play and his general style....Beginning with la Bourdonnais to the present, and including Lasker, we find that the greatest stylist has been Morphy. Whence the reason, although it might not be the only one, why he is generally considered the greatest of all."

""...Morphy, the master of all phases of the game, stronger than any of his opponents, even the strongest of them..." ~ Alexander Alekhine, in Shakmatny Vestnik, January 15, 1914"

"We also remember the brilliant flight of the American super-genius Paul Morphy, who in a couple of years (1857-59) conquered both the New and the Old Worlds. He revealed a thunderous blend of pragmatism, aggression and accurate calculation to the world -- qualities that enabled America to accomplish a powerful spurt in the second half of the 19th century."

"What was the secret of Morphy's invincibility? I think it was a combination of a unique natural talent and brilliant erudition. His play was the next, more mature stage in the development of chess. Morphy had a well-developed 'feeling for position', and therefore he can be confidently regarded as the 'first swallow' - the prototype of the strong 20th century grandmaster."

"After the passage of a century, Morphy still remains the most glamorous figure that has ever appeared in the chess world."

"Genius is a starry word; but if there ever was a chess player to whom that attribute applied, it was Paul Morphy."

"It has been truly said that Morphy was at once the Caesar and the Napoleon of chess. He revolutionized chess. He brought life and dash and beauty into the game at a time when an age of dullness was about to set in and he did this at a stroke. Then he quit forever. Only two years from the beginning to the end. The negotiations for some modern matches have taken that long!"

"With all that this country has given me, I felt it wasn't right for me to be enjoying life in Indian Hill when Marines were fighting and dying in Iraq."

"We're not going to spread democracy at the business end of a M16 held by a 23 year old Marine."

"You take a 22-year-old American, you shoot at him all day long, you deprive him of sleep, you make him see his buddies being killed, he has their blood on his boots and blouse, and when you don't see perfection in his decisions you court-martial him? It's absurd."

"You just watch. There is going to be a Columbine-times-10 incident, and everyone will finally get it. Either that, or some video gamer is going to go Columbine at some video game exec's expense or at E3, and then the industry will begin to realize that there is no place to hide, that it has trained a nation of Manchurian Children."

"This is not rocket science. When a kid who has never killed anyone in his life goes on a rampage and looks like the Terminator, he's a video gamer."

"Grand Theft Auto IV is the gravest assault upon children in this country since polio. We now have vaccines for that virus... The 'vaccine' that must be administered by the United States government to deal with this virtual virus of violence and sexual depravity is criminal prosecutions of those who have conspired to do this."

"I'm only interested in virile men. That's why I'm not attracted to you."

"When television is good, nothing--not the theater, not the magazines or newspapers--nothing is better. But when television is bad, nothing is worse. I invite you to sit down in front of your television set when your station goes on the air and stay there without a book, magazine, newspaper, profit and-loss sheet or rating book to distract you--and keep your eyes glued to that set until the station signs off. I can assure you that you will observe a vast wasteland."

"What do we mean by "the public interest?" Some say the public interest is merely what interests the public. I disagree."

"We need imagination in programming, not sterility; creativity, not imitation; experimentation, not conformity; excellence, not mediocrity. Television is filled with creative, imaginative people. You must strive to set them free."

"Never have so few owed so much to so many."

"To quarrel over the past is to lose the future."

"Donald Ball and Wendell H. McCulloch, Jr., International Business: Introduction and Essentials, 5th ed. (Homewood, IL: Richard Irwin, 1993), p. 368."

"The great moral question of the twenty-first century is this: if all knowledge, all culture, all art, all useful information can be costlessly given to everyone at the same price that it is given to anyone; if everyone can have everything, anywhere, all the time, why is it ever moral to exclude anyone?"

"We are a non-utopian political movement. We are not interested in going nowhere. We are not interested in going to some place we have never been, which we will get to after the revolution because people will be different. The crucial operating premise of the Free Software Movement as a revolutionary politic is: Proof of Concept plus Running code. Here. We did it already. It's sort of working. If you take a copy and help us fix it, it could really be something. Here. You want it? Take it. We like it. It's Free."

"I think Larry is right to notice that the contradictions are catching the allies up already. It's one of those cases where even before you begin bombing the children, the coalition is falling apart. And that's good news. And I'm very much in favor of it. Some Powell or other is messing up the war."

"The Entertainment Industry on Planet Earth had decided that in order to acquire Layer 7 Data Security, it was necessary to lock up layers 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6 so that no technological progress could occur without their permission. This was known by the IT Industry and the Consumer Electronics Industry on the planet to be offensive nonsense, but there was no counterweight to it, and there was no organised consumer dissent sufficient to require them to stand up for technical merit and their own right to run their own businesses without dictation from companies a tenth their size. Not surprisingly, since it is part of the role we play in this political power concentrated in poverty, humility, and sanctity, we brought them to a consensus they were unable to bring themselves to - which is represented in the license by a rule which fundamentally says "If you want to experiment with locking down layer below 7 in the pursuit of data networks inside businesses that keep the business's data at home, you may do so freely, we have no objection - not only do we have no objection to you doing it, we've no objection to your using our parts to do it with. But when you use our parts to build machines which control peoples' daily lives - which provide them with education and culture, build devices which are modifiable by them to the same extent that they're modifiable by you. That's all we want. If you can modify the device after you give it to them, then they must be able to modify the device after you give it to them - that's a price for using our parts. That's a deal which has been accepted."

"You could make a good case that the history of social life is about the history of the technology of memory. That social order and control, structure of governance, social cohesion in states or organizations larger than face-to- face society depends on the nature of the technology of memory--both how it works and what it remembers... In short, what societies value is what they memorize, and how they memorize it, and who has access to its memorized form determines the structure of power that the society represents and acts from."

"The difference is, this time, we win."

"The President so fully represents his party, which secures political power by its promise to the people, and the whole government is so identified in the minds of the people with his personality that they make him responsible for all the sins of omission and of commission of society at large. This would be ludicrous if it did not have sometimes serious results. The President cannot make clouds to rain and cannot make the corn to grow, he cannot make business good; although when these things occur, political parties do claim some credit for the things that have happened in this way. He has no power of state legislation, which covers a very wide field and which comes in many respects much closer to the happiness of the people than the Federal Government."

"I am a Unitarian. I believe in God. I do not believe in the divinity of Christ, and there are many postulates of the orthodox creed to which I cannot subscribe."

"The welfare of the farmer is vital to that of the whole country."

"If humor be the safety of our race, then it is due largely to the infusion into the American people of the Irish brain."

"We are all imperfect. We can not expect perfect government."

"I have come to the conclusion that the major part of the work of a President is to increase the gate receipts of expositions and fairs and bring tourists to town."

"I am in favor of helping the prosperity of all countries because, when we are all prosperous, the trade of each becomes more valuable to the other."

"One of the marvelous things about him is that he is strong enough to force the men who dislike him the most to stand by him. By far he is the strongest man before the people to-day except Roosevelt. I think his greatest fault is his failure to accord credit to anyone for what he may have done. This is a great weakness in any man. I think it was one of the strongest things about Roosevelt. He never tried to minimize what other people did and often exaggerated it."

"I love judges, and I love courts. They are my ideals, that typify on earth what we shall meet hereafter in heaven under a just God."

"The intoxication of power rapidly sobers off in the knowledge of its restrictions and under the prompt reminder of an ever-present and not always considerate press, as well as the kindly suggestions that not infrequently come from Congress."

"The diplomacy of the present administration has sought to respond to modern ideas of commercial intercourse. This policy has been characterized as substituting dollars for bullets. It is one that appeals alike to idealistic humanitarian sentiments, to the dictates of sound policy and strategy, and to legitimate commercial aims."

"Next to the right of liberty, the right of property is the most important individual right guaranteed by the Constitution and the one which, united with that of personal liberty, has contributed more to the growth of civilization than any other institution established by the human race."

"Socialism proposes no adequate substitute for the motive of enlightened selfishness that to-day is at the basis of all human labor and effort, enterprise and new activity."

"There is nothing so despicable as a secret society that is based upon religious prejudice and that will attempt to defeat a man because of his religious beliefs. Such a society is like a cockroach — it thrives in the dark. So do those who combine for such an end."

"It is one of the deepest wounds that I have had as an American and a lover of the Constitution and a believer in progressive conservatism, that such a man as Brandeis could be put on the Court."

"There is only one thing I wast to say about Ohio that has a political tinge, and that is that I think a mistake has been made of recent years in Ohio in failing to continue as our representatives the same people term after term. I do not need to tell a Washington audience, among whom there are certainly some who have been interested in legislation, that length of service in the House and in the Senate is what gives influence."

"Anti-Semitism is a noxious weed that should be cut out. It has no place in America."

"It is important, of course, that controversies be settled right, but there are many civil questions which arise between individuals in which it is not so important the controversy be settled one way or another as that it be settled. Of course a settlement of a controversy on a fundamentally wrong principle of law is greatly to be deplored, but there must of necessity be many rules governing the relations between members of the same society that are more important in that their establishment creates a known rule of action than that they proceed on one principle or another. Delay works always for the man with the longest purse."

"The truth is that in my present life I don’t remember that I ever was president."

"The world is not going to be saved by legislation."

"We live in a stage of politics, where legislators seem to regard the passage of laws as much more important than the results of their enforcement."

"Presidents may go to the seashore or to the mountains. Cabinet officers may go about the country explaining how fortunate the country is in having such an administration, but the machinery at Washington continues to operate under the army of faithful non-commissioned officers, and the great mass of governmental business is uninterrupted."

"Substantial progress toward better things can rarely be taken with out developing new evils requiring new remedies."

"The President cannot make clouds to rain and cannot make the corn to grow, he cannot make business good; although when these things occur, political parties do claim some credit for the good things that have happened in this way."

"If I run as the regular Republican nominee, I may go down to defeat if a bolt is started by Roosevelt, but I will retain the regular organization of the party as a nucleus about which the conservative people who are in favor of maintaining constitutional government can gather, both from the Democratic and Republican parties, and we will have two radicals and one conservative."

"Politics, when I am in it, makes me sick."

"I'll be damned if I am not getting tired of this. It seems to be the profession of a President simply to hear other people talk."

"Don't worry over what the newspapers say. I don't. Why should anyone else? I told the truth to the newspaper correspondents - but when you tell the truth to them they are at sea."

"The publishers profess to be the agents of heaven in establishing virtue and therefore that they ought to receive some subsidy from the government. I can ask no stronger refutation to this claim … than the utterly unscrupulous methods pursued by them in seeking to influence Congress on this subject."

"Presidents come and go, but the Supreme Court goes on forever."

"Enthusiasm for a cause sometimes warps judgment."

"Some men are graduated from college cum laude, some are graduated summa cum laude, and some are graduated mirabile dictu."

"No tendency is quite so strong in human nature as the desire to lay down rules of conduct for other people."

"The year 1908 saw the election of the first U.S. president to successfully weigh more than three hundred pounds, William Howard Taft, who ran on a platform of reinforced concrete and who, in a stirring inauguration speech, called for "a bacon cheeseburger and a side order of fries." Another important occurrence in the Taft administration was the famous Ballinger-Pinchot affair, which is truly one of the most fascinating and bizarre episodes in the nation's history, although it is quite frankly none of your business. (Especially the part about the dwarf goat.)"

"One advantage possessed by Mr. Taft over Mr. Hughes is that Mr. Taft is able to cover more ground—especially when sitting down."

"Taft was cheerful, friendly, a typical hail-fellow-well-met with an infectious chuckle. Always popular, he had many friends but, surprisingly, few intimates. "One of the astonishing things about Taft's four years in the White House," wrote biographer Henry F. Pringle, "was the almost total lack of men, related or otherwise, upon whom he could lean... For the most part he faced his troubles alone." He was not happy as President. The break with his predecessor and former mentor, Theodore Roosevelt, weighed heavily on his mind; he was often irritable, depressed, at least once in tears. He regained his good spirits in retirement and as chief justice."

"In 1912 President William H. Taft declared: "The day is not far distant when three Stars and Stripes at three equidistant points will mark our territory: one at the North Pole, another at the Panama Canal, and the third at the South Pole. The whole hemisphere will be ours in fact as, by virtue of our superiority of race, it already is ours morally. " Taft said that the correct path of justice in U.S. foreign policy "may well be made to include active intervention to secure for our merchandise and our capitalists opportunity for profitable investment."

"A little before eight-thirty the President and Mrs. Taft and the family would come down to the private dining room for breakfast. As a rule he would eat two oranges, a twelve-ounce beefsteak, several pieces of toast and butter and a vast quantity of coffee, with cream and sugar. In looking through my diaries of this period I find that on November 27th, 1911, I have a note which reads: "The President weighs 332 pounds and tells me with a great laugh that he is going on a diet but that 'things are in a sad state of affairs when a man can't even call his gizzard his own.'""

"While the fabled cherry trees in Washington represent a suitable monument for Nellie Taft, there is no memorial to her husband, except perhaps the magnificent home for his Court—one for which he eagerly planned. But he died even before ground was broken for the structure. As he reacted to his overwhelming defeat for reelection in 1912, Taft had written that "I must wait for years if I would be vindicated by the people ... I am content to wait." Perhaps he has waited long enough."

"Many years before Harry Truman fired General Douglas MacArthur, there was another prima donna general, the renowned John C. Frémont. For issuing orders authorizing the emancipation of slaves in Missouri without presidential permission, Lincoln fired him on the spot. As for MacArthur, he should have known better: the same thing had also happened to his own father. Back in the early 1900s, General Arthur MacArthur, military governor of the Philippines, made the stupid mistake of not recognizing the superior authority of the civilian governor, William Howard Taft, who later became president. Years later, when MacArthur's turn came to be promoted to Army Chief of Staff, Taft blackballed him."

"Writing in The Crisis in 1911, W.E.B. Du Bois bitterly described Taft's betrayal of black Americans. "In the face of a record of murder, lynching and burning in this country which has appalled the civilized world and loosened the tongue of many a man long since dumb on the race problem, spite of this, Mr. Taft has blandly informed a deputation of colored men that any action on his part is quite outside his power, if not his interest.""

"The President recognized that the creation of the Bull Moose party would mean “a long hard fight with probable defeat” in November, but it would also end all future chances of Roosevelt’s nomination by the Republican party. The President believed that Roosevelt had so discredited himself at the convention that “many who followed him before . . . will now fall away from him and yield to the calls of regularity.” In any case, Taft felt that victory in November was not as important as preserving the party as the defender of “conservative government and conservative institutions.” He almost welcomed a purifying defeat."

"A CIA officer's name was blown and there was a leak and we needed to figure out how that happened, who did it, why, whether a crime was committed, whether we could prove it, whether we should prove it. Given national security was at stake, it was especially important that we find out accurate facts."

"When citizens testify before grand juries they are required to tell the truth. Without the truth, our criminal justice system cannot serve our nation or its citizens."

"Mr. Libby's story that he was at the tail end of a chain of phone calls, passing on from one reporter what he heard from another, was not true. It was false. He was at the beginning of the chain of the phone calls, the first official to disclose this information outside the government to a reporter. And he lied about it afterward, under oath and repeatedly."

"Libby was advised by the vice president of the United States that Wilson's wife worked at the CIA in the counterproliferation division. Libby understood that the vice president had learned this information from the CIA."

"We brought those cases because we realized that the truth is the engine of our judicial system. We didn't get the straight story, and we had to - had to - act."

"I can't give you answers on what we know and don't know, other than what's charged in the indictment. It's not because I enjoy being in that position. It's because the law is that way. I actually think the law should be that way. We can't talk about information not contained in the four corners of the indictment."

"My job is to investigate whether or not a crime is committed, can be proved and should be charged. I'm not going to comment on what to make beyond that. You know, it's not my jurisdiction, not my job, not my judgment."

"Let me then ask your next question: Well, why is this a leak investigation that doesn't result in a charge? I've been trying to think about how to explain this, so let me try. I know baseball analogies are the fad these days. Let me try something.If you saw a baseball game and you saw a pitcher wind up and throw a fastball and hit a batter right smack in the head, and it really, really hurt them, you'd want to know why the pitcher did that. And you'd wonder whether or not the person just reared back and decided, "I've got bad blood with this batter. He hit two home runs off me. I'm just going to hit him in the head as hard as I can."You also might wonder whether or not the pitcher just let go of the ball or his foot slipped, and he had no idea to throw the ball anywhere near the batter's head. And there's lots of shades of gray in between.You might learn that you wanted to hit the batter in the back and it hit him in the head because he moved. You might want to throw it under his chin, but it ended up hitting him on the head.And what you'd want to do is have as much information as you could. You'd want to know: What happened in the dugout? Was this guy complaining about the person he threw at? Did he talk to anyone else? What was he thinking? How does he react? All those things you'd want to know.And then you'd make a decision as to whether this person should be banned from baseball, whether they should be suspended, whether you should do nothing at all and just say, "Hey, the person threw a bad pitch. Get over it."In this case, it's a lot more serious than baseball. And the damage wasn't to one person. It wasn't just Valerie Wilson. It was done to all of us.And as you sit back, you want to learn: Why was this information going out? Why were people taking this information about Valerie Wilson and giving it to reporters? Why did Mr. Libby say what he did? Why did he tell Judith Miller three times? Why did he tell the press secretary on Monday? Why did he tell Mr. Cooper? And was this something where he intended to cause whatever damage was caused?Or did they intend to do something else and where are the shades of gray?And what we have when someone charges obstruction of justice, the umpire gets sand thrown in his eyes. He's trying to figure what happened and somebody blocked their view."

"The First Amendment, I think, is the jewel of our Constitution."

"I am particularly proud of my contributions in recent cases in which the government has argued in the Supreme Court that racial and ethnic quotas should not be allowed and that the Constitution does not protect a right to an abortion."

"Our country as a whole, no less than the Hastings College of Law, values tolerance, cooperation, learning, and the amicable resolution of conflicts. But we seek to achieve those goals through "[a] confident pluralism that conduces to civil peace and advances democratic consensus-building," not by abridging First Amendment rights."

"In order to have a society in which public issues can be openly and vigorously debated, it is not necessary to allow the brutalization of innocent victims."

"You can't say that marriage is the union between one man and one woman. Until very recently, that's what the vast majority of Americans thought. Now it's considered bigotry."

"The separation of church and state has been a cornerstone of American democracy for over two hundred years. Getting rid of it was long overdue."

"Justice Samuel Alito minced no words in his public evisceration of the Supreme Court’s 6-3 Murthy v. Missouri decision to greenlight the Biden administration’s flagrant First Amendment violations. …While most of his colleagues mocked self-censorship, Alito and his fellow dissidents accurately classified Big Tech and the Biden administration’s coordinated attempt to suppress online speech, especially during the media-fueled panic over Covid-19, as a “serious threat to the First Amendment” that warrants intervention. …Alito concluded his written thrashing with a warning that the threat of government censorship “did not come with expiration dates” or lose steam “merely because White House officials opted not to renew them on a regular basis.” On the contrary, he wrote that Facebook and other Big Tech companies’ publicized promise to “continue reporting to the White House and remain responsive to its concerns for as long as the officials requested” suggests this will be an ongoing losing battle for Americans who want to speak their minds on social media."

"Your record raises troubling questions about whether you appreciate the checks and balances in our Constitution -- the careful efforts of our Founding Fathers to protect us from a government or a president determined to seize too much power over our lives."

"“If you were good friends [with businessman Paul Singer], what were you doing ruling on his case?” said Charles Geyh, an Indiana University law professor and leading expert on recusals. “And if you weren’t good friends, what were you doing accepting this?” referring to the flight on the private jet."

"You have obviously had a very distinguished record, and I certainly commend you for long service in the public interest. I think it is a very commendable career and I am sure you will have a successful one as a judge."

"I believe Mr. Alito has the experience and the skills to be the kind of judge the public deserves – one who is impartial, thoughtful, and fair. I urge the Senate to confirm his nomination."

"The confirmation of Sam Alito as U.S. Attorney for New Jersey is testimony to the commitment he has shown and the success of his efforts as a law enforcement official. I am confident that he will continue to do all he can to uphold the laws of this nation with the kind of determination and vigor that has been his trademark in the past."

"There was the abortion brief and also the brief in the Wygant case. I had a big hand in writing it, and so did Sam Alito, who had this marvelous phrase saying that a particular African American baseball player would not have served as a great role model if the fences had been pulled in every time he was up at bat, a point which some people were greatly offended by because they thought it to be pamphleteering. I thought it was entirely appropriate."

"Of course he's against abortion."

"There's an outside chance that Roberts might assign [the opinion] to Alito, but, you know, [it's] Alito's second year on the Court; he should still do the tax and ERISA cases for a few more years. I think this case is too intersting for him."

"the people's right to have their day in court is being foreclosed. Corporate victories in federal and state elections work hand in hand with this mission by assuring the nomination of more commercially-responsive judges such as Chief Justice Roberts, and Justices Scalia and Alito, with the same being true in many states."

"When Justice Samuel Alito wrote the leaked draft of his opinion overturning Roe v. Wade, he cited the conservative argument that someone who places a newborn for adoption today will likely find the baby a good home because of high demand."

"Samuel 'no ladies at Princeton' Alito"

"President Bush is a liar. He betrayed Nevada and he betrayed the country... All Americans should be concerned, not just because he lied to me or the people of Nevada and indeed all Americans, but because the President's decision threatens Americans' lives."

"I know procedures around here. And I know that there will still be Senate business conducted. But I will, for lack of a better word, screw things up."

"The man's father is a wonderful human being. I think this guy is a loser."

"RS: You’ve called Bush a loser. Reid: And a liar. RS: You’ve apologized for the loser comment. Reid: But never for the liar, have I?"

"[F]or more than three years this Congress, which has been given the name “The Do-Nothing Congress,” has turned a blind eye to the intractable war in Iraq, ignoring the Administration’s many mistakes, allowing it to stay a failed course. Here we are with six days left in the 109th Congress, and the Republicans, which control the House and the Senate and the White House, have not held one hearing, not one, into the President’s wartime failures."

"Alberto Gonzales was never the right man for this job. He lacked independence, he lacked judgment, and he lacked the spine to say no to Karl Rove. This resignation is not the end of the story. Congress must get to the bottom of this mess and follow the facts where they lead, into the White House."

"In the summertime, because it gets so hot here, you could literally smell the tourists coming."

"Instead of joining us on the right side of history, all Republicans have come up with is this slow down, stop everything, let's start over. You think you've heard these same excuses before, you're right. When this country belatedly recognized the wrongs of slavery, there were those who dug in their heels and said, slow down, it's too early. Let's wait. Things aren't bad enough. When women spoke up for the right to speak up, they wanted to vote, some insisted slow down, there will be a better day to do that. The day isn't quite right. When this body was on the verge of guaranteeing equal civil rights to everyone, regardless of the color of their skin, some senators resorted to the same filibuster threats that we hear today. More recently, when chairman Chris Dodd of Connecticut, one of the people who will go down as a chief champion of the bill before us today, said that Americans should be able to take care of their families without fear of losing their jobs, you heard the same old excuses, seven years of fighting and more than one presidential veto, it was slow down, stop everything, start over. History is repeating itself before our eyes. There are now those who don't think it is the right time to reform health care. If not now, when, madam president? But the reality for many that feel that way, it will never, never be a good time to reform health care."

"Reid spoke of future President Barack Obama in 2008 describing him as a, "light-skinned' African American 'with no Negro dialect, unless he wanted to have one." Reid apologized for these remarks in January 2010 when they were publicized."

"I said … unprepared, unscripted, that, "I know how to fight and I know how to dance, and I'd much rather dance than fight." ... What I didn't tell everybody was I was always a better fighter than dancer."

"Jim Margolis"

"in late July, the U.S. Senate decided to do exactly nothing about climate change. They didn't do less than they could have they did nothing, preserving a perfect two-decade bipartisan record of no action. Senate majority leader Harry Reid decided not even to schedule a vote on legislation that would have capped carbon emissions."

"Barack Obama"

"Slaves, though held by the laws of men, are free by the laws of God."

"No power on earth has a right to take our property from us without our consent."

"The Americans are the first people whom heaven has favoured with an opportunity of deliberating upon and choosing forms of government under which they should live."

"Among the strange things of this world, nothing seems more strange than that men pursuing happiness should knowingly quit the right and take a wrong road, and frequently do what their judgments neither approve nor prefer. Yet so is the fact; and this fact points strongly to the necessity of our being healed, or restored, or regenerated by a power more energetic than any of those which properly belong to the human mind. We perceive that a great breach has been made in the moral and physical systems by the introduction of moral and physical evil; how or why, we know not; so, however, it is, and it certainly seems proper that this breach should be closed and order restored. For this purpose only one adequate plan has ever appeared in the world, and that is the Christian dispensation. In this plan I have full faith. Man, in his present state, appears to be a degraded creature; his best gold is mixed with dross, and his best motives are very far from being pure and free from earth and impurity."

"The Bible is the best of all books, for it is the word of God and teaches us the way to be happy in this world and in the next. Continue therefore to read it and to regulate your life by its precepts."

"Our people had been so long accustomed to the practice and convenience of having slaves, that very few among them even doubted the propriety and rectitude of it. Some liberal and conscientious men had indeed, by their conduct and writings, drawn the lawfulness of slavery into question."

"That men should pray and fight for their own freedom, and yet keep others in slavery, is certainly acting a very inconsistent, as well as unjust and, perhaps, impious part, but the history of mankind is filled with instances of human improprieties."

"It is much to be wished that slavery may be abolished. The honour of the States, as well as justice and humanity, in my opinion, loudly call upon them to emancipate these unhappy people. To contend for our own liberty, and to deny that blessing to others, involves an inconsistency not to be excused."

"With equal pleasure I have as often taken notice, that Providence has been pleased to give this one connected country, to one united people; a people descended from the same ancestors, speaking the same language, professing the same religion, attached to the same principles of government, very similar in their manners and customs, and who, by their joint counsels, arms and efforts, fighting side by side throughout a long and bloody war, have nobly established their general Liberty and Independence."

"This country and this people seem to have been made for each other, and it appears as if it was the design of Providence, that an inheritance so proper and convenient for a band of brethren, united to each other by the strongest ties, should never be split into a number of unsocial, jealous, and alien sovereignties."

"Similar sentiments have hitherto prevailed among all orders and denominations of men among us. To all general purposes we have uniformly been one people; each individual citizen everywhere enjoying the same national rights, privileges, and protection. As a nation we have made peace and war: as a nation we have vanquished our common enemies: as a nation we have formed alliances, and made treaties, and entered into various compacts and conventions with foreign States."

"It is too true, however disgraceful it may be to human nature, that nations in general will make war whenever they have a prospect of getting anything by it; nay, absolute monarchs will often make war when their nations are to get nothing by it, but for the purposes and objects merely personal, such as thirst for military glory, revenge for personal affronts, ambition, or private compacts to aggrandize or support their particular families or partisans. These and a variety of other motives, which affect only the mind of the sovereign, often lead him to engage in wars not sanctified by justice or the voice and interests of his people."

"Distrust naturally creates distrust, and by nothing is good-will and kind conduct more speedily changed than by invidious jealousies and uncandid imputations, whether expressed or implied."

"Every man of every color and description has a natural right to freedom."

"It is presumed, that juries are the best judges of facts; it is, on the other hand, presumed that courts are the best judges of law. But still both objects are within your power of decision ... You have a right to take it upon yourselves to judge of both, and to determine the law as well as the fact in controversy."

"It certainly is very desirable that a pacific disposition should prevail among all nations. The most effectual way of producing it, is by extending the prevalence and influence of the gospel. Real Christians will abstain from violating the rights of others, and therefore will not provoke war. Almost all nations have peace or war at the will and pleasure of rulers whom they do not elect, and who are not always wise or virtuous. Providence has given to our people the choice of their rulers, and it is the duty, as well as the privilege and interest, of our Christian nation to select and prefer Christians for their rulers."

"With the sure sagacity of a leader of men, Washington at once selected, for the highest and most responsible stations, the three chief Americans who represented the three forces in the nation which alone could command success in the institution of the government. Hamilton was the head, Jefferson was the heart, and John Jay was the conscience. Washington's just and serene ascendancy was the lambent flame in which these beneficent powers were fused, and nothing less than that ascendancy could have ridden the whirlwind and directed the storm that burst around him."

"By this constitution [NY State 1777] the right of suffrage was, in several instances, restricted to freeholders; it being a favourite maxim with Mr. Jay, that those who own the country ought to govern it."

"Well may the boldest fear and the wisest tremble when incurring responsibilities on which may depend our country's peace and prosperity, and in some degree the hopes and happiness of the whole human family."

"By the theory of our Government majorities rule, but this right is not an arbitrary or unlimited one. It is a right to be exercised in subordination to the Constitution and in conformity to it. One great object of the Constitution was to restrain majorities from oppressing minorities or encroaching upon their just rights. Minorities have a right to appeal to the Constitution as a shield against such oppression."

"Foreign powers do not seem to appreciate the true character of our Government."

"The world has nothing to fear from military ambition in our Government."

"Although in our country the Chief Magistrate must almost of necessity be chosen by a party and stand pledged to its principles and measures, yet in his official action he should not be the President of a part only, but of the whole people of the United States. While he executes the laws with an impartial hand, shrinks from no proper responsibility, and faithfully carries out in the executive department of the Government the principles and policy of those who have chosen him, he should not be unmindful that our fellow-citizens who have differed with him in opinion are entitled to the full and free exercise of their opinions and judgments, and that the rights of all are entitled to respect and regard."

"It becomes us, in humility, to make our devout acknowledgments to the Supreme Ruler of the Universe, for the inestimable civil and religious blessings with which we are favored."

"The passion for office among members of Congress is very great, if not absolutely disreputable, and greatly embarrasses the operations of the government. They create offices by their own votes and then seek to fill them themselves."

"Thank God, under our Constitution there was no connection between church and state."

"There is more selfishness and less principle among members of Congress, as well as others, than I had any conception [of], before I became President of the U.S."

"With me it is emphatically true that the presidency is "no bed of roses.""

"Under the benignant providence of Almighty God the representatives of the States and of the people are again brought together to deliberate for the public good. The gratitude of the nation to the sovereign arbiter of all human events should be commensurate with the boundless blessings which we enjoy. Peace, plenty, and contentment reign throughout our borders, and our beloved country presents a sublime moral spectacle to the world."

"No president who performs his duties faithfully and conscientiously can have any leisure. If he entrusts the details and smaller matters to subordinates constant errors will occur. I prefer to supervise the whole operations of the government myself rather than entrust the public business to subordinates, and this makes my duties very great."

"I am heartily rejoiced that my term is so near its close. I will soon cease to be a servant and will become a sovereign."

"I love you Sarah. For all eternity, I love you."

"For the next ten years the question of the admission of Texas as a state of the Union was a burning issue in American politics. As each new state demanded entry into the Union so the feeling for and against slavery ran higher. The great Abolitionist journalist, William Lloyd Garrison, called for a secession of the Northern states if the slave state of Texas was admitted to the Union. The Southerners, realising that Texan votes would give them a majority in the Senate if this vast territory was admitted as a number of separate states, clamoured for annexation. The capitalists of the East were committed, through the formation of land companies, to exploit Texas, and besides the issue of dubious stocks by these bodies vast quantities of paper notes and bonds of the new Texan Republic were floated in the United States. The speculation in these helped to split the political opposition of the Northern states to the annexation. Even more important was the conversion of many Northerners to belief in the “Manifest Destiny” of the United States. This meant that their destiny was to spread across the whole of the North American continent. The Democratic Party in the election of 1844 called for the occupation of Oregon as well as the annexation of Texas, thus holding out to the North the promise of Oregon as a counterweight to Southern Texas. The victory of the Democratic candidate, James K. Polk, was interpreted as a mandate for admitting Texas, and this was done by joint resolution of Congress in February 1845."

"It remained to persuade Mexico to recognise this state of affairs, and also to fix the boundaries of Texas. President Polk was determined to push them as far south as possible, and war was inevitable. It broke out in May 1846. Meanwhile a similar train of events was unfolding on the other side of the continent. All this time American penetration of the West had continued, often with grim experiences of starvation and winter snows. Nothing could stop the migration towards the Pacific. The lure of the rich China trade and the dream of controlling the Western Ocean brought the acquisition of California to the fore, and gave her even more importance in American eyes than Texas. In June 1846 the American settlers in California, instigated from Washington, raised the Bear Flag as their standard of revolt and declared their independence on the Texan model. Soon afterwards American forces arrived and the Stars and Stripes replaced the Bear."

"Polk was by nature an introvert but out of political necessity forced himself to mingle. He had few genuinely close friends. Still, he was generally well liked. A classic overachiever, he was very ambitious. Biographer Charles C. Sellers attributed his "feverish drive" to "early physical inferiority," "frustrations of his boyish ambitions," and "his mother's stern gospel of duty." To compensate for a lack of brilliance and charisma, he, according to sellers, "drove himself ruthlessly, exploiting the abilities and energies he did possess to an extent that few men can equal." Yet he kept a firm rein on his ambition, never letting it threaten his career."

"President James K. Polk, who presided over the invasion of Mexico, saw its significance as an example of how a democracy could carry on and win a foreign war with as much "vigor" as authoritarian governments were able to do. He believed that an elected civilian government with its volunteer people's army was even more effective than European monarchies in the quest for empire. The victory over Mexico proved to the European powers, he felt, that the United States was their equal. Standing tall through military victory over a weak country: it was not Ronald Reagan or George W. Bush who thought up that idea. The tradition is as old as the United States itself."

"The melancholy thing in our public life is the insane desire to get higher."

"We all agree that neither the Government nor political parties ought to interfere with religious sects. It is equally true that religious sects ought not to interfere with the Government or with political parties. We believe that the cause of good government and the cause of religion both suffer by all such interference."

"Let me assure my countrymen of the Southern States that it is my earnest desire to regard and promote their truest interest — the interests of the white and of the colored people both and equally — and to put forth my best efforts in behalf of a civil policy which will forever wipe out in our political affairs the color line and the distinction between North and South, to the end that we may have not merely a united North or a united South, but a united country."

"The President of the United States of necessity owes his election to office to the suffrage and zealous labors of a political party, the members of which cherish with ardor and regard as of essential importance the principles of their party organization; but he should strive to be always mindful of the fact that he serves his party best who serves the country best."

"If he had it would have deprived me of two reasons for feeling satisfied with this afternoon - one was that I escaped by leaving the other end of the city, and the other, what I gained by enjoying with you this pleasant occasion."

"It is the desire of the good people of the whole country that sectionalism as a factor in our politics should disappear."

"It will be the duty of the Executive, with sufficient appropriations for the purpose, to prosecute unsparingly all who have been engaged in depriving citizens of the rights guaranteed to them by the Constitution."

"The only road, the sure road to unquestioned credit and a sound financial condition is the exact and punctual fulfilment of every pecuniary obligation, public and private, according to its letter and spirit."

"In avoiding the appearance of evil, I am not sure but I have sometimes unnecessarily deprived myself and others of innocent enjoyments."

"Fighting battles is like courting girls: those who make the most pretensions and are boldest usually win."

"For honest merit to succeed amid the tricks and intrigues which are now so lamentably common, I know is difficult; but the honor of success is increased by the obstacles which are to be surmounted. Let me triumph as a man or not at all."

"Virtue is defined to be mediocrity, of which either extreme is vice."

"Youth, however, is a defect that she is fast getting away from and may perhaps be entirely rid of before I shall want her."

"We have now become pretty well acquainted with the sugar-growing part of Texas. The life of a planter who has a fair start in the world is one of the most independent imaginable. We here find the pleasures of fashionable life without its tyranny. I doubt, however, whether a person of Northern education could so far forget his home-bred notions and feelings as ever to be thoroughly Southern on the subject of slavery. We have seen none of “the horrors” so often described, but on the other hand I have seen nothing to change my Northern opinions."

"Is there anything in which the people of this age and country differ more from those of other lands and former times than in this — their ability to preserve order and protect rights without the aid of government? … We are realizing the paradox, “that country is governed best which is governed least.” I no longer fear lynch law. Let the people be intelligent and good, and I am not sure but their impulsive, instinctive verdicts and sentences and executions, unchecked by the rules and technicalities of law, are more likely to be according to substantial justice than the decisions of courts and juries."

"Disunion and civil war are at hand; and yet I fear disunion and war less than compromise. We can recover from them. The free States alone, if we must go on alone, will make a glorious nation."

"I never enjoyed any business or mode of life as much as I do this. I really feel badly when I think of several of my intimate friends who are compelled to stay at home. These marches and campaigns in the hills of western Virginia will always be among the pleasantest things I can remember. I know we are in frequent perils, that we may never return and all that, but the feeling that I am where I ought to be is a full compensation for all that is sinister, leaving me free to enjoy as if on a pleasure tour."

"I still feel just as I told you, that I shall come safely out of this war. I felt so the other day when danger was near. I certainly enjoyed the excitement of fighting our way out of Giles to the Narrows as much as any excitement I ever experienced. I had a good deal of anxiety the first hour or two on account of my command, but not a particle on my own account. After that, and after I saw that we were getting on well, it was really jolly. We all joked and laughed and cheered constantly."

"These semi-traitors [Union generals who were not hostile to slavery] must be watched. — Let us be careful who become army leaders in the reorganized army at the end of this Rebellion. The man who thinks that the perpetuity of slavery is essential to the existence of the Union, is unfit to be trusted. The deadliest enemy the Union has is slavery — in fact, its only enemy."

"We have dancing … from soon after sundown until a few minutes after nine o’clock.... Occasionally the boys who play the female partners in the dances exercise their ingenuity in dressing to look as girlish as possible. In the absence of lady duds they use leaves, and the leaf-clad beauties often look very pretty and always odd enough."

"You use the phrase “brutal Rebels.” Don’t be cheated in that way. There are enough “brutal Rebels” no doubt, but we have brutal officers and men too. I have had men brutally treated by our own officers on this raid [to Lynchburg, Va.]. And there are plenty of humane Rebels. I have seen a good deal of it on this trip. War is a cruel business and there is brutality in it on all sides, but it is very idle to get up anxiety on account of any supposed peculiar cruelty on the part of Rebels. Keepers of prisons in Cincinnati, as well as in Danville, are hard-hearted and cruel."

"We now talk of our killed and wounded. There is however a very happy feeling. Those who escape regret of course the loss of comrades and friends, but their own escape and safety to some extent modifies their feelings."

"When the weather is bad as it was yesterday, everybody, almost everybody, feels cross and gloomy. Our thin linen tents — about like a fish seine, the deep mud, the irregular mails, the never to-be-seen paymasters, and “the rest of mankind,” are growled about in “old-soldier” style. But a fine day like today has turned out brightens and cheers us all. We people in camp are merely big children, wayward and changeable."

"General Crook gave me a very agreeable present this afternoon — a pair of his old brigadier-general straps. The stars are somewhat dimmed by hard service, but will correspond pretty well with my rusty old blouse. Of course I am very much gratified by the promotion. I know perfectly well that the rank has been conferred on all sorts of small people and so cheapened shamefully, but I can’t help feeling that getting it at the close of a most bloody campaign on the recommendation of fighting generals like Crook and Sheridan is a different thing."

"We had an inspection today of the brigade. The Twenty-third was pronounced the crack regiment in appearance, … [but] I could see only six to ten in a company of the old men. They all smiled as I rode by. But as I passed away I couldn’t help dropping a few natural tears. I felt as I did when I saw them mustered in at Camp Chase."

"Perhaps the happiest moment of my life was then, when I saw that our line didn’t break and that the enemy’s did."

"While your rheumatism stays with you I naturally feel anxious to hear often. If you should be so unlucky as to become a cripple, it will certainly be bad, but you may be sure I shall be still a loving husband, and we shall make the best of it together."

"As to Mr. Lincoln’s name and fame and memory, — all is safe. His firmness, moderation, goodness of heart; his quaint humor, his perfect honesty and directness of purpose; his logic his modesty his sound judgment, and great wisdom; the contrast between his obscure beginnings and the greatness of his subsequent position and achievements; his tragic death, giving him almost the crown of martyrdom, elevate him to a place in history second to none other of ancient or modern times. His success in his great office, his hold upon the confidence and affections of his countrymen, we shall all say are only second to Washington’s; we shall probably feel and think that they are not second even to his."

"I feel the desire to be with you all the time. Oh, an occasional absence of a week or two is a good thing to give one the happiness of meeting again, but this living apart is in all ways bad. We have had our share of separate life during the four years of war. There is nothing in the small ambition of Congressional life, or in the gratified vanity which it sometimes affords, to compensate for separation from you. We must manage to live together hereafter. I can’t stand this, and will not."

"I am a freeman and jolly as a beggar."

"I have a talent for silence and brevity. I can keep silent when it seems best to do so, and when I speak I can, and do usually, quit when I am done. This talent, or these two talents, I have cultivated. Silence and concise, brief speaking have got me some laurels, and, I suspect, lost me some. No odds. Do what is natural to you, and you are sure to get all the recognition you are entitled to."

"I regard the inflation acts as wrong in all ways. Personally I am one of the noble army of debtors, and can stand it if others can. But it is a wretched business."

"My only objection to the arrangements there is the two-in-a-bed system. It is bad.... But let your words and conduct be perfectly pure — such as your mother might know without bringing a blush to your cheek.... If not already mentioned, do not tell your mother of the doubling in bed."

"I hope you will be benefitted by your churchgoing. Where the habit does not Christianize, it generally civilizes. That is reason enough for supporting churches, if there were no higher."

"Every age has its temptations, its weaknesses, its dangers. Ours is in the line of the snobbish and the sordid."

"My speaking is irregular. Sometimes quite good, sometimes not, but generally will do... I am too far along in experience and years both for this business. I do not go into [it] with the zest of old times. Races, baseball, and politics are for the youngsters."

"My policy is trust, peace, and to put aside the bayonet. I do not think the wise policy is to decide contested elections in the States by the use of the national army."

"I am not liked as a President by the politicians in office, in the press, or in Congress. But I am content to abide the judgment — the sober second thought — of the people."

"General education is the best preventive of the evils now most dreaded. In the civilized countries of the world, the question is how to distribute most generally and equally the property of the world. As a rule, where education is most general the distribution of property is most general.... As knowledge spreads, wealth spreads. To diffuse knowledge is to diffuse wealth. To give all an equal chance to acquire knowledge is the best and surest way to give all an equal chance to acquire property."

"There can be no complete and permanent reform of the civil service until public opinion emancipates congressmen from all control and influence over government patronage. Legislation is required to establish the reform. No proper legislation is to be expected as long as members of Congress are engaged in procuring offices for their constituents."

"We can travel longer, night and day, without losing our spirits than almost any persons we ever met."

"I am heartily tired of this life of bondage, responsibility, and toil. I wish it was at an end.... We are both physically very healthy.... Our tempers are cheerful. We are social and popular. But it is one of our greatest comforts that the pledge not to take a second term relieves us from considering it. That was a lucky thing. It is a reform — or rather a precedent for a reform, which will be valuable."

"Let every man, every corporation, and especially let every village, town, and city, every county and State, get out of debt and keep out of debt. It is the debtor that is ruined by hard times."

"Nobody ever left the presidency with less regret, less disappointment, fewer heart burnings, or any general content with the result of his term (in his own heart, I mean) than I do. Full of difficulty and trouble at first, I now find myself on smooth waters and under bright skies."

"Coming in, I was denounced as a fraud by all the extreme men of the opposing party, and as an ingrate and a traitor by the same class of men in my own party. Going out, I have the good will, blessings, and approval of the best people of all parties and sections."

"One of its [James A. Garfield’s assassination] lessons, perhaps its most important lesson, is the folly, the wickedness, and the danger of the extreme and bitter partisanship which so largely prevails in our country. This partisan bitterness is greatly aggravated by that system of appointments and removals which deals with public offices as rewards for services rendered to political parties or to party leaders. Hence crowds of importunate place-hunters of whose dregs Guiteau is the type. The required reform [of the civil service] will be accomplished whenever the people imperatively demand it, not only of their Executive, but also of their legislative officers. With it, the class to which the assassin belongs will lose their occupation, and the temptation to try “to administer government by assassination” will be taken away."

"The debt was the most sacred obligation incurred during the war. It was by no means the largest in amount. We do not haggle with those who lent us money. We should not with those who gave health and blood and life. If doors are opened to fraud, contrive to close them. But don’t deny the obligation, or scold at its performance."

"Constitutional statutes … which embody the settled public opinion of the people who enacted them and whom they are to govern — can always be enforced. But if they embody only the sentiments of a bare majority, pronounced under the influence of a temporary excitement, they will, if strenuously opposed, always fail of their object; nay, they are likely to injure the cause they are framed to advance."

"The general review of the past tends to satisfy me with my political life. No man, I suppose, ever came up to his ideal. The first half [of] my political life was first to resist the increase of slavery and secondly to destroy it.... The second half of my political life has been to rebuild, and to get rid of the despotic and corrupting tendencies and the animosities of the war, and other legacies of slavery."

"Personally I do not resort to force — not even the force of law — to advance moral reforms. I prefer education, argument, persuasion, and above all the influence of example — of fashion. Until these resources are exhausted I would not think of force."

"Every good cause gained a victory when the Union troops were triumphant. Our final victory was the triumph of religion, of virtue, of knowledge.... During those four years, whatever our motives, whatever our lives, we were fighting on God’s side. We were doing His work. What would this country have been if we had failed?"

"The [Loyal] legion has taken the place of the club — the famous Cincinnati Literary Club — in my affections.... The military circles are interested in the same things with myself, and so we endure, if not enjoy, each other."

"Strikes and boycotting are akin to war, and can be justified only on grounds analogous to those which justify war, viz., intolerable injustice and oppression."

"The real difficulty is with the vast wealth and power in the hands of the few and the unscrupulous who represent or control capital. Hundreds of laws of Congress and the state legislatures are in the interest of these men and against the interests of workingmen. These need to be exposed and repealed. All laws on corporations, on taxation, on trusts, wills, descent, and the like, need examination and extensive change. This is a government of the people, by the people, and for the people no longer. It is a government of corporations, by corporations, and for corporations. — How is this?"

"The sacred obligation to the Union soldiers must not — will not be forgotten nor neglected.... But those who fought against the Nation cannot and do not look to it for relief.... Confederate soldiers and their descendants are to share with us and our descendants the destiny of America. Whatever, therefore, we their fellow citizens can do to remove burdens from their shoulders and to brighten their lives is surely in the pathway of humanity and patriotism."

"Unjust attacks on public men do them more good than unmerited praise. They are hurt less by undeserved censure than by undeserved commendation. Abuse helps; often praise hurts."

"Abolish plutocracy if you would abolish poverty. As millionaires increase, pauperism grows. The more millionaires, the more paupers."

"The progress of society is mainly—is, in its proper sense, the improvement in the condition of the workingmen of the world."

"Do not let your bachelor ways crystallize so that you can’t soften them when you come to have a wife and a family of your own."

"Wars will remain while human nature remains. I believe in my soul in cooperation, in arbitration; but the soldier’s occupation we cannot say is gone until human nature is gone."

"The unrestricted competition so commonly advocated does not leave us the survival of the fittest. The unscrupulous succeed best in accumulating wealth."

"Partisanship should be kept out of the pulpit... The blindest of partisans are preachers. All politicians expect and find more candor, fairness, and truth in politicians than in partisan preachers. They are not replied to — no chance to reply to them.... The balance wheel of free institutions is free discussion. The pulpit allows no free discussion."

"Conscience is the authentic voice of God to you."

"One of the tests of the civilization of people is the treatment of its criminals."

"All appointments hurt. Five friends are made cold or hostile for every appointment; no new friends are made. All patronage is perilous to men of real ability or merit. It aids only those who lack other claims to public support."

"That's an amazing invention, but who would ever want to use one of them?"

"His public service extended over many years and over a wide range of official duty. He was a patriotic citizen, a lover of the flag and of our free institutions, an industrious and conscientious civil officer, a soldier of dauntless courage, a loyal comrade and friend, a sympathetic and helpful neighbor, and the honored head of a happy Christian home. He has steadily grown in the public esteem, and the impartial historian will not fail to recognize the conscientiousness, the manliness, and the courage that so strongly characterized his whole public career."

"Torpedoes in His Path: Can he, with that load, get through without exploding them?"

"The purity of his private and personal life was never questioned, and during his term of office at Washington there was a distinct elevating of the tone and standard of official life. There is no doubt that his Administrations served a very useful purpose in the transition from sectional antagonism to national harmony, and from the old methods of dealing with the public service as party spoils to the new method of placing ascertained merit and demonstrated fitness above party service or requirements. It was an inevitable consequence that he should lose popularity and political influence in serving these important ends, but the value of his services will nevertheless be permanently recognized."

"In 1877, Rutherford B. Hayes was the first president to make a strong case for universally available public education. "Universal suffrage should rest upon universal education," he said in his inaugural address, adding, "Liberal and permanent provision should be made for the s support of free schools." For Hayes, a Republican, education was the basis for full economic and political participation, and the basis for prosperity. I agree."

"Had West Virginia been nothing more than a mountainous bulwark around which rushed the main currents of American life, its fate would probably have resembled that of Vermont. In fact, Rutherford B. Hayes made this comparison and concluded that there was "Nothing finer in Vermont or New Hampshire" than the western Virginia scenery he enjoyed. If the resemblance had continued to hold, West Virginia would have remained a backwater during the agricultural and industrial revolutions of the nineteenth century but still would have enjoyed two compensating mid-twentieth-century trends: the federal policies and programs that have worked to iron out differences in material standards of living among the various states, and the rise of tourist and recreational industries. Even today, notwithstanding all the violence that has been visited on the landscape, West Virginia's scenery and the recreational potential of its mountains, forests, and streams have proved its most enduring economic resources. Thus for states like Vermont and for those small portions of eastern West Virginia that have nothing but scenery to depend on, modern affluence and aesthetic values may finally break down the barriers that once separated mountain regions from full participation in the nation's economic life."

"Judges are the weakest link in our system of justice and they are also the most protected."

"In representing criminal defendants—especially guilty ones—it is often necessary to take the offensive against the government: to put the government on trial for its misconduct. In law, as in sports, the best defense is often a good offense."

"I have had sex with one woman since the day I met Jeffrey Epstein. I challenge David Boies to say under oath that he’s only had sex with one woman during that same period of time. He has an abnormal amount of chutzpah to attack me and challenge my perfect, perfect sex life during the relevant period of time"

"The courtroom oath—to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth—is applicable only to witnesses... because the American justice system is built on a foundation of not telling the whole entire truth."

"As one civil-liberties lawyer, who is concerned about the sometimes vigilante attitude toward accused rapists, puts it: "Some people regard rape as so heinous an offense that they would not even regard innocence as a defense.""

"The First Amendment is not limited to the right to be right; it also enshrines the right to be wrong."

"There’s no question. My biggest enemies are the hard left. The hard left poses a far greater danger to the American future than the hard right. I’m not worried about a few dozen people with Swastikas who want to replace the Jews, because they’re our past. They have no resonance on the University campuses today. But the hard, hard left? Anti-Semitism, anti-Christianity, intolerance for speech, it’s the future. These are our leaders… And that’s why we have to worry much more about what’s going on, on university campuses, than in Charlottesville."

"It was Lavrentiy Beria who told Stalin,‘show me the man, and I’ll find your crime.’ You can go through the federal criminal code and find crimes that virtually any businessman, any politician has committed. It is so easy to get a warrant. It is so easy to persuade a judge to give you a wiretap warrant. That simply doesn’t protect American citizens, and any civil libertarian who was exposed to what’s going on here today — if Hillary Clinton were the subject — would be taking exactly the opposite position."

"I think we are moving closer and closer to the surveillance state where phone calls are tapped, where emails are secured without a real basis. Seeking wiretaps on lawyers’ offices and search warrants and subpoenas for lawyers, email files, unless they have very serious evidence of very serious crimes. Campaign contributions don’t qualify for the kind of crime that should justify the wiretapping of a lawyer."

"I am a skeptic about everything, including God and atheism. I am not certain about issues of cosmology.… I am more certain that the miraculous stories that form the basis of most religious beliefs are myths. Yet I respect the Bible and enjoy reading and teaching it. Indeed, I find it even more fascinating as a human creation than as a divine revelation. I consider myself a committed Jew, but I do not believe that being a Jew requires belief in the supernatural.… Indeed, it is while praying that I experience my greatest doubts about God, and it is while looking at the stars that I make the leap of faith.… If there is a governing force, He (or She or It) is certainly not in touch with those who purport to be speaking on His behalf."

"I have no doubt that if an actual ticking bomb situation were to arise, our law enforcement authorities would torture. The real debate is whether such torture should take place outside of our legal system or within it. The answer to this seems clear: If we are to have torture, it should be authorized by the law."

"Here is my proposal. Israel should announce an immediate unilateral cessation in retaliation against terrorist attacks. This moratorium would be in effect for a short period, say four or five days, to give the Palestinian leadership an opportunity to respond to the new policy. It would also make it clear to the world that Israel is taking an important step in ending what has become a cycle of violence. Following the end of the moratorium, Israel would institute the following new policy if Palestinian terrorism were to resume. It will announce precisely what it will do in response to the next act of terrorism. For example, it could announce the first act of terrorism following the moratorium will result in the destruction of a small village which has been used as a base for terrorist operations. The residents would be given 24 hours to leave, and then troops will come in and bulldoze all of the buildings."

"Dershowitz: The Israeli military then did an analysis, and they discovered, of course, that when they dropped that bomb and killed those people, they had no idea that those people were in the building, and the people who made the decision to drop the bomb were criticized and disciplined for it. The point I make is, when they knew, for sure, that family members were there, they withheld doing it. That doesn't deny the fact that on occasion they will accidentally make a decision that's wrong. The difference is deliberateness, willfulness… Norman Finkelstein: …That was a nice fairy tale, dropping a 1 ton bomb on a densely populated civilian neighborhood in Gaza, and they had no idea that civilians would be there. And then he goes on to fantasy #2, that those who did it were disciplined. Really, Mr. Dershowitz? I'd love the evidence for that. I mean, if I could get $10,000 for every one of your fraudulent statements…"

"And any civil libertarian who was exposed to what’s going on here today — if Hillary Clinton were the subject — would be taking exactly the opposite position. There is so much hypocrisy, partisan hypocrisy out there. I don’t mind if conservatives take the view we ought to trust government or former prosecutors take the view we ought to trust government. My gripe is against civil libertarians and criminal defense lawyers, people who are always on the side of challenging the government. The ACLU has suddenly lost its way and they've forgotten what they’ve been preaching for 50 years because it is Donald Trump they’re after."

"You will find that the number of Israeli casualties among civilians exceeds the number of Palestinian casualties among (pause) innocent civilians who were noncombatants and not involved in any way in terrorism, and were killed by the Israelis, as distinguished from being killed by Palestinian (pause) terrorists as collaborators! That is simply a fact-I know of no source that disputes that!"

"The threat of mutually assured destruction worked for the United States during the Cold War because it had proved its willingness to drop nuclear bombs on enemy cities at the end of World War II. It might work less well for Israel, because the Israeli Air Force has never deliberately targeted a large civilian population center, and its leaders have said its morality would not permit it do so."

"You know, being black doesn’t give you a license to call people racist any more than being Jewish gives you license to call people anti-Semitic."

"That is why a criminal trial is not a search for truth. Scientists search for truth. Philosophers search for morality. A criminal trial searches for only one result: proof beyond a reasonable doubt."

"The Israeli army has given well-publicized notice to civilians to leave those areas of southern Lebanon that have been turned into war zones. Those who voluntarily remain behind have become complicit. Some -- those who cannot leave on their own -- should be counted among the innocent victims. If the media were to adopt this "continuum," it would be informative to learn how many of the "civilian casualties" fall closer to the line of complicity and how many fall closer to the line of innocence. Every civilian death is a tragedy, but some are more tragic than others."

"I wasn’t wrong. I am just far more correct now than I was then."

"Rights come from human experience, particularly experiences with injustice… In a word, rights come from wrongs."

"Southern intellectuals also invoked economic and political arguments in support of slavery. They pointed to the dreadful situation of the ‘free laborers’ in the North and throughout Europe, and the exploitative nature of industrial capitalism. The slave owner felt a moral obligation toward the slave and had an economic stake in his continues welfare, since the slave was valuable property… As far as the right of every slave to be a free laborer, they mocked this argument as the right to be ‘free to beg, steal and starve.’"

"For those who believe in the inerrancy and absoluteness of natural law, both sides cannot be right. But the reality is that there may indeed be both a right to life and a right to choose, just as there may be a right to life and a right of individual or societal self-defense."

"If there can be agreement that certain rights are essential to reduce the chances of perfect injustice, that constitutes the beginning of a solid theory of rights."

"I believe that experience demonstrates that a democratic society that recognizes and enforces these basic rights—uncensored expression, freedom of conscience, due process, democracy, and equal protection of the laws—is preferable to a society that does not. That is my case for rights. That is why I have a strong preference for rights."

"But rights are not, as Justice Robert Jackson once reminded us, like a limited railroad ticket: good for this train at this day only. They are designed for all people and for an enduring period of time."

"The Meares-Kahan essay begins with a historical error. The rights about which they speak did not grow exclusively out of an effort to remedy institutionalized racism. Rights do have histories, and the right of every American to be secure against unlawful police intrusion grew out of a long history of governmental abuse against disempowered people of all backgrounds."

"But ‘group rights’ is an oxymoron. Groups, especially those with increasing political power, have interests and agendas, but they may not implement them by ignoring the rights of individuals, especially those within these groups who are disempowered and despised."

"If those who are asked to go home after 11:00 P.M. willingly do so, there is no constitutional violation. The conflict occurs precisely because some individuals refuse to consent. It is their rights that come into conflict with the interests of the majority. It is no answer to say they consented, unless we accept the proposition—rejected by all rights theories—that a majority can consent for an unwilling minority."

"Rights are traditionally directed against governmental abuses. They are designed to limit the power of the state, especially the police. They are negative rights: ‘the state may not. . .’ This conception of rights grows out of the lessons of history that teaches that in the long run, abuses by the state are far more dangerous to liberty and democracy than individual criminal conduct, dangerous and disturbing as that is."

"Our First Amendment expresses a far different calculus for regulating speech than for regulating nonexpressive conduct and that is as it should be. The right to swing your fist should end at the tip of my nose, but your right to express your ideas should not necessarily end at the lobes of my ears.""

"An important assumption underlying our commitment to freedom of expression is that truth is a process, not a product."

"I began with the premise that, deep down, everybody wants to censor something. Human beings, no matter how committed to the principles of free speech, have deep-seated distrust of the open marketplace of ideas, especially when they themselves—or the groups to which they belong—are ‘victims’ of the excesses of free speech."

"Students throughout the totalitarian world risk life and limb for freedom of expression, many American college students are demanding that big brother restrict their freedom of speech on campus. This demand for enhanced censorship is not emanating only from the usual corner – the know-nothing fundamentalist right – it is coming from the radical, and increasingly not-so-radical left as well."

"We hope that the end result is a just verdict that is also truthful, even though all sides in a trial want to hide at least some of the truth."

"The defendant wants to hide the truth because he's generally guilty. The defense attorney's job is to make sure the jury does not arrive at that truth."

"The prosecution is perfectly happy to have the truth of guilt come out but it, too, has a truth to hide: it wants to make sure the process by which the evidence was obtained is not truthfully presented, because, as often as not, that process will raise questions."

"The judge also has a truth he wants to hide: He often hasn't been completely candid in describing the facts or the law."

"A group called the Azov Brigade fought bravely to defend eastern Ukraine, holding out in Mariupol's Azovstal Steel Plant for weeks after others had given up hope. Unfortunately, the same Azov Brigade has proudly boasted of its neo-Nazi ideology and wore their own version of the swastika until it was no longer convenient for them to do so."

"The New York Times has described the relationship between Ukraine and Nazi imagery as "complicated." If that is somehow intended as a justification, it defies history...A considerable number of Ukrainians supported the Nazi invasion of their country and saw it as liberating them from the oppression of the Soviet Union. That was then! But there is no excuse or justification for the current Ukrainian leadership tolerating the glorification of the Nazis and the widespread and open use of Nazi symbols by its soldiers."

"The Times reports that even some Jewish organizations are prepared to give Ukraine a pass on its toleration of neo-Nazis, because they don't want to be perceived as supporting Russian President Vladimir Putin's narrative about Ukraine being a Nazi state. Ukraine is not a Nazi state; it is a state that elected a Jew as president, while tolerating Nazism in its military. Those who refuse to condemn such intolerable toleration only encourage it by their mistaken silence. Calling out military groups that would like to turn Ukraine into a Nazi state, does not further the Russian narrative. It only tells a painful truth about the present, the past, and the likely future."

"Elaine Kendall of the Los Angeles Times calls Dershowitz "the attorney of last resort for the desperate and despised, counselor for lost causes and forlorn hopes.""

"Dershowitz is not only a remarkable liar and slanderer, but also an extreme opponent of elementary civil rights."

"As much as people dismiss him (Dershowitz) as a clown and charlatan and roll their eyes ­ the fact of the matter is that he very effectively makes use of his Harvard pedigree ­ it is a distinguished university and he has an eminent chair of that university and he makes use of those credentials to lend credibility to his work"

"Dershowitz does not engage the debate in this country about Israel on the factual, legal, moral, and humanitarian merits because he knows that his client is "guilty" of violating international law in its occupation of the Palestinian territories"

"Professor Alan M. Dershowitz is Brooklyn native who has been called "the nation’s most peripatetic civil liberties lawye"’ and one of its "most distinguished defenders of individual rights," "the best-known criminal lawyer in the world," "the top lawyer of last resort," "America’s most public Jewish defender" and "Israel’s single most visible defender – the Jewish state’s lead attorney in the court of public opinion." He is the Felix Frankfurter Professor of Law at Harvard Law School."

"Over this storied career, Dershowitz’s public persona has remained more or less unchanged: loud, provocative, brilliant and principled, if also relentlessly self-promoting. And, until recently, his positions have been tolerated, if not always embraced, by the legal academy and universally acknowledged for their moral seriousness."

"Alan Dershowitz is one of the world’s most famous lawyers. He is also probably one of the best. If you're a billionaire accused of serially raping minors, he's the guy who can get you a non-prosecution agreement and 13 months of "work release" in your own office. Dershowitz is uncommonly talented as an advocate, which is why famous scumbags so often turn to him for help. If I was accused of a hideous crime, and I was told I could have Alan Dershowitz as my lawyer, I would thank my lucky stars."

"It there had been a few people like Alan Dershowitz during the 1930s and 1940s, the history of European jewry might have been different."

"When I was in the south in the 60s, the white people didn't really curse you out, they just tried to kill you. And this abuse is nothing compared to that...On the other hand, I have not seen this level of hysteria before. I haven't. Ever since I got involved 12 years ago, it has been increasing. And it hasn't leveled off. Even some of the attack dogs are being attacked. Did you see them going after Dershowitz? It's very unusual for him, to get some of his medicine back. He was bitten and he was kind of shocked."

"The mere fear that there is a mole within an agency can set off a chain reaction and a hunt for that particular mole which can paralyze the agency for weeks and months and years even, in a search. The same thing is true about just the false scare of a threat of using some kind of a chemical weapon or a biological one. There are some reports, for example, that some countries have been trying to construct something like an Ebola Virus, and that would be a very dangerous phenomenon, to say the least. Alvin Toffler has written about this in terms of some scientists in their laboratories trying to devise certain types of pathogens that would be ethnic specific so that they could just eliminate certain ethnic groups and races; and others are designing some sort of engineering, some sort of insects that can destroy specific crops. Others are engaging even in an eco- type of terrorism whereby they can alter the climate, set off earthquakes, volcanoes remotely through the use of electromagnetic waves. So there are plenty of ingenious minds out there that are at work finding ways in which they can wreak terror upon other nations. It's real, and that's the reason why we have to intensify our efforts, and that's why this is so important."

"What do all those magazine stories look like years later? Reading your own journalism is like finding your diary from high school. It makes you blush. Could I really have been that naive and self-important? Yep. And nasty, too. I once wrote a profile of William Cohen, who for a time was Bill Clinton’s secretary of defense. Cohen wasn’t an especially commanding figure, but he was an awfully nice man. You could sense that the moment you met him. Why did I feel the need to mock the syrupy poetry he’d written about his first wife? I can’t remember now. I wish I hadn’t."

"Thou little bird, thou dweller by the sea, Why takest thou its melancholy voice, And with that boding cry Why o'er the waves dost fly? O, rather, bird, with me Through the fair land rejoice!"

"Tuesday, January 13, 1835: We made the land at Point Conception... the point of Santa Barbara, to which we were bound, lying about fifty miles to the southeast of this point, we continued sailing down the coast during the day and the following night, and on the next morning.On the whole coast of California there was not a lighthouse, a beacon, or a buoy, and the charts were made up from old and disconnected surveys by British, Russian, and Mexican voyagers. Birds of prey and passage swooped and dived about us, wild beasts ranged through the oak groves... herds of deer came to the water's edge."

"January, 14th, 1835: We came to anchor in the spacious bay of Santa Barbara. There was only one vessel in the port. Beside the vessel, there was no object to break the surface of the bay... directly opposite the anchoring ground, lie the mission and town of Santa Barbara, on a low plain, but little above the level of the sea, covered with grass, though entirely without trees, and surrounded on three sides by an amphitheater of mountains, which slant off to the distance of fifteen or twenty miles. The mission stands a little back of the town, and is a large building, or rather a collection of buildings, in the center of which is a high tower, with a belfry of five bells. The whole, being plastered, makes quite a show at a distance, and is the mark by which vessels come to anchor. The town lies a little nearer to the beach — about half a mile from it — and is composed of one-story houses built of sun-baked clay, or adobe, some of them whitewashed, with red tiles on the roof. I should judge that there was about a hundred of them... The town is finely situated, with a bay in front, and an amphitheater of hills behind."

"I shall never forget the impression which our first landing on the beach of California make upon me. The sun had just gone down; it was getting dusky; the damp night wind was beginning to blow, and the heavy swell of the Pacific was setting in, and breaking in loud and high "combers" on the beach... we put our oars in the boat, and, leaving one to watch it, walked about the beach to see what we could of the place. The beach is nearly a mile in length between the two points, and of smooth sand... It was growing dark, so that we could just distinguish the dim outlines of the two vessels in the offing; and the great seas were rolling in in regular lines, growing larger and larger as they approached the shore, and hanging over the beach upon which they were to break, when their tops would curl over and turn white with foam, and, being at one extreme of the line, break rapidly to the other, as a child's long card house falls when a card is knocked down at one end."

"If the women but have little virtue, the jealousy of their husbands is extreme, and their revenge deadly and almost certain. A few inches of cold steel have been the punishment of many an unwary man, who has been guilty, perhaps, of nothing more than indiscretion. The difficulties of the attempt [to copulate with a married woman] are numerous, and the consequences of discovery fatal, in the better classes. With the unmarried women, too, great watchfulness is used. The main object of the parents is to marry their daughters well, and to this a fair name is necessary. The sharp eyes of a duena, and the ready weapons to a father or brother, are a protection which the characters of most of them — men and women — render by no means useless; for the very men who would lay down their lives to avenge the dishonor of their own family would risk the same lives to complete the dishonor of another."

"An overstrained sense of manliness is the characteristic of seafaring men. This often gives an appearance of want of feeling, and even of cruelty. From this, if a man comes within an ace of breaking his neck and escapes, it is made a joke of; and no notice must be taken of a bruise or cut; and expression of pity, or any show of attention, would look sisterly, and unbecoming a man who has to face the rough and tumble of such a life. From this cause, too, the sick are neglected at sea, and, whatever sailors may be ashore, a sick man finds little sympathy or attention, forward or aft. A man, too, can have nothing peculiar or sacred on board ship; for all the nicer feelings they take pride in disregarding, both in themselves and others. A "thin-skinned" man could hardly live on shipboard. One would be torn raw unless he had the hide of an ox."

"Referring to a professor aboard ship: This passenger — the first and only one we had had, except to go from port to port on the coast — was no one else than a gentleman whom I had known in my smoother days, and the last person I should have expected to see on the coast of California — Professor Nuttall of Cambridge. I had left him quietly seated in the chair of the Botany and Ornithology Department at Harvard University, and the next I saw of him, he was strolling about San Diego beach, in a sailors' pea jacket, with a wide straw hat, and barefooted, with his trousers rolled up to his knees, picking up stones and shells... I was often amused to see the sailors puzzled to know what to make of him, and to hear their conjectures about him and his business... The Pilgrim's crew called Mr. Nuttall "Old Curious," from his zeal for curiosities; and some of them said that he was crazy, and that his friends let him go about and amuse himself this way. Why else would (he)... come to such a place as California to pick up shells and stones, they could not understand. One of them, however, who had seen something more of the world ashore said, "Oh, 'vast there!... I've seen them colleges and know the ropes. They keep all such things for cur'osities, and study 'em, and have men a purpose to go and get 'em... He'll carry all these things to the college, and if they are better than any that they have had before, he'll be head of the college. Then, by and by, somebody else will go after some more, and if they beat him he'll have to go again, or else give up his berth. That's the way they do it. This old covery knows the ropes. He has worked a traverse over 'em, and come 'way out here where nobody's ever been afore, and where they'll never think of coming." This explanation satisfied Jack; and as it raised Mr. Nuttall's credit, and was near enough to the truth for common purposes, I did not disturb it."

"Passing round Point Conception, and steering easterly, we opened the islands that form, with the mainland, the canal of Santa Barbara. There they are, Santa Cruz and Santa Rosa, and there is the beautiful point, Santa Buenaventura; and there lies Santa Barbara on its plain, with its amphitheater of high hills and distant mountains. There is the old white mission with its belfries, and there the town, with its one-story adobe houses, with here and there a two-story wooden house of later build; yet little is it altered — the same repose in the golden sunlight and glorious climate, sheltered by its hills; and then, more remindful than anything else, there roars and tumbles upon the beach the same grand surf of the great Pacific... the same bright-blue ocean, and the surf making just the same monotonous, melancholy roar, and the same dreamy town."

"It had been the winter of 1835-6 that the ship, Alert, in her voyage for hides on the remote and almost unknown coast of California, floated into the vast solitude of the bay of San Francisco. All around was the stillness of nature. One vessel, a Russian, lay at anchor there, but during our whole stay not a sail came or went. Our trade was with remote missions, which sent hides to us in launches manned by their Indians... Over a region far beyond our sight there was no other human habitations, expect that an enterprising Yankee, years in advance of his time, had put up, on the rising ground above the landing, a shanty of rough boards, where he carried on a very small retail trade between the hide ships and the Indians. On the evening of Saturday, the thirteenth of August, 1859 (I again sailed into) the entrance to San Francisco, (now) the great center of worldwide commerce."

"We bore round the point toward the old anchoring ground of the hide ships, and there, covering the sand hills and the valleys... flickering all over with the lamps of its streets and houses, lay a city of one hundred thousand inhabitants. The dock into which we drew, and the streets about it, were densely crowded with express wagons and handcarts... Though this crowd I made my way, along the well-built and well-light streets, as alive as by day, where boys in high-keyed voices where already crying the latest New York papers. When I awoke in the morning, and looked from my windows over the city of San Francisco, with its storehouses, towers, and steeples; its courthouses, theaters, and hospitals, its daily journals, its well-filled learned professions, its fortresses and lighthouses; its wharves and harbor... when I saw all these things, and reflected on what I once saw here, and what now surrounded me, I could scarcely keep my hold on reality at all, or the genuineness of anything."

"As we made the high point off San Diego, Point Loma, we were greeted by the cheering presence of a lighthouse. As we swept round it in the early morning, there, before us, lay the little harbor of San Diego, its low spit of sand, where the water runs so deep; the opposite flats, where the Alert grounded in starting for home; the low hills, without trees, and almost without brush; the quiet little beach; but the chief objects, the hide houses, my eye looked for in vain. They were gone, all, and left no mark behind. I wished to be alone, so I let the other passengers go up to the town, and was quietly pulled ashore in a boat, and left to myself. The recollections and the emotions were all sad... and only sad."

"The past was real. The present, all about me, was unreal, unnatural, repellent. I saw the big ships lying in the stream... the home of hardship and hopelessness; the boats passing to and fro; the cries of the sailors at the capstan or falls; the peopled beach; the large hide houses, with their gangs of men; and the Kanakas interspersed everywhere. All, all were gone! Not a vestige to mark where one hide house stood. The oven, too, was gone. I searched for its site, and found, where I thought it should be, a few broken bricks and bits of mortar. I alone was left of all, and how strangely was I here! What changes to me! Where were they all? Why should I care for them — poor Kanakas and sailors, the refuse of civilization, the outlaws and the beachcombers of the Pacific! Time and death seemed to transfigure them. Doubtless nearly all were dead; but how had they died, and where? In hospitals, in fever climes, in dens of vice, or falling from the mast, or dropping exhausted from the wreck "When for a moment, like a drop of rain/He sinks into thy depths with bubbling groan/Without a grave, unknelled, uncoffined, and unknown." The lighthearted boys are now hardened middle-aged men, if the seas, rocks, fevers, and the deadlier enemies that beset a sailor's life on shore have spared them; and the then strong men have bowed themselves, and the earth or sea has covered them. How softening is the effect of time! It touches us through the affections. I almost feel as if I were lamenting the passing away of something loved and dear — the boats, the Kanakas, the hides, my old shipmates! Death, change, distance, lend them a character which makes them quite another thing."

"On the morning of January 11th, 1860, I passed, for the eighth time, through the Golden Gate... As the shores of California faded in the distance, and the summits of the Coast Range sank under the blue horizon, I bade farewell — yes, I do not doubt, forever — to those scenes which, however changed or unchanged, must always possess an ineffable interest for me."

"Can any of you seriously say the Bill of Rights could get through Congress today? It wouldn’t even get out of committee."

"The defendant in a courtroom is little more than a patient on an operating table without the benefit of anaesthesia. He has to watch what's happening, but he can't do anything about it. He hasn't the understanding of the law, the ability to try cases or any of the other skills required of his lawyer. So the lawyer is a projection of the defendant. He's doing everything the defendant would do if he were able—short of suborning perjury and other nonpermissible tactics."

"Those who think the information brought out at a criminal trial is the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth are fools. Prosecuting or defending a case is nothing more than getting to those people who will talk for your side, who will say what you want said."

"I use the rules to frustrate the law. But I didn’t set up the ground rules."

"I get paid for seeing that my clients have every break the law allows. I have knowingly defended a number of guilty men. But the guilty never escape unscathed. My fees are sufficient punishment for anyone."

"The public regards lawyers with great distrust. They think lawyers are smarter than the average guy but use their intelligence deviously. Well, they're wrong. Usually they are not smarter."

"From the day the President announced my nomination as the Attorney General of the United States three months ago, I have thought often about how to best prepare to meet the awesome responsibilities of this office. Outside these walls, the cries of those powerless souls who are injured, disenfranchised or otherwise aggrieved may indeed be faint. But those same pleas for help echo powerfully within the Department of Justice. Every day, like a steady drumbeat we are asked to provide an answer to a problem, to secure a remedy, to be a champion — and every day this Department responds as it has done so time and time again throughout the history of our beloved America."

"America is my home — I believe in her promise and I will do what I can to secure that promise for future generations of our children. America is great — not because of our military might or our economic strength — but because of the greatness of Americans, and I welcome the opportunity to stand shoulder to shoulder, side by side with all of you to preserve our heritage rich in "liberty and justice for all.""

"President Washington, President Lincoln, President Wilson, President Roosevelt have all authorized electronic surveillance on a far broader scale."

"There is no express grant of habeas in the Constitution. There's a prohibition against taking it away."

"I consider myself a casualty, one of the many casualties of the war on terror."

"(Asked by John King about the political climate that existed in Washington at the time, and criticism of the Department of Justice under his management) Listen I don't expect an apology from men like Chuck Schumer, and I would put him and other individuals who were attacking me at the top of the list contributing to the low, low public perception of Congress, the integrity of Congress quite frankly."

"To achieve victory at the cost of eroding civil liberties would not really be a victory. We cannot change the core identity of our Nation and claim success. And our identity has never been in doubt — we are a free people, dedicated to liberty for the popular and the unpopular, committed to the ideal that the People govern themselves, and determined to have a government that cannot extinguish or suppress the rights that make us Americans."

"Free speech. Freedom of association. These values are repulsive to the radical Islamic terrorist. They fear them and suppress them whenever and wherever they can. Yet through those very means, we as a society are protective of that terrorist’s rights. This is ironic, but good. Because, as you well know, America has a unique responsibility to set the global standard for liberty and fair conduct. The world looks to us to set high standards for freedom, and we take that leadership role very seriously. Our commitment to leading by example – on issues from human rights to free speech – is strong. Indeed, other countries strike a different balance between security and freedom, both in the activities they punish as crimes, and in the procedures with which they do so. In some instances, our allies have adopted or utilized some counterterrorism tools that we have not adopted in the United States because doing so would abridge the civil liberties protected by our constitution."

"It is a myth that the Patriot Act empowers the government to be overly intrusive, giving it power that could someday be used to pry into innocent Americans’ personal lives. The fact is that the Patriot Act was born of a well-established criminal justice and national security structure as well as vibrant bi-partisan debate in Congress, both upon its establishment and its renewal. The Act was written to help the law enforcement and intelligence communities to protect Americans and fight the war on terror. It, in fact, answered the call of career, rank and file law enforcement to update our laws to match law-enforcement tools with modern technology. The Patriot Act simply ensures that law enforcement and national security personnel have the tools they need to keep us safe from terrorism — and in many cases those tools were already available to law enforcement in other contexts — while also ensuring that those tools are consistent with the Constitution and include appropriate safeguards against government over-reaching."

"The Patriot Act does not authorize the government to go into your house or read your mail without probable cause and a warrant. It does allow law enforcement and intelligence personnel to better share information and better coordinate with each other. It does give national security investigators tools like those criminal investigators have used for years. And it does update the law to keep up with evolving technology and increasingly sophisticated terrorists. Many of the tools in the Patriot Act are identical to those that have been used for years to investigate drug dealers and white-collar crime. They've been used effectively, and they've been used without an adverse impact on civil liberties. So criticism of the Patriot Act has always begged the question: if we can use these tools successfully and prudently in the area of dealing with, say, drug traffickers, why shouldn’t they be used in the war against terrorists who want to import chemical, biological or even nuclear weapons to inflict mass civilian casualties?"

"Torture is not tolerated by this country on the battlefield or off. Anyone who tortures or abuses a detainee tarnishes the service of every honorable student and soldier in this room today. The President has said this, and I will say it again: those who commit torture in the name of the United States government will be prosecuted. In any discussion of Guantanamo, detainees and military commissions, I think that one final fact helps put things in perspective — and that is the fact that members of al Qaeda are not merely common criminals. Some critics around the world have argued that they are “just” criminals, that their crimes somehow do not amount to war crimes. But here are the facts: al Qaeda seeks to employ weapons of mass slaughter as a means of achieving political goals against both the civilian and military capacity of the United States, Europe, and our allies throughout the world. Its members continue to fight our Armed Forces on battlefields around the world, and they will continue to do so until we stop them. Al Qaeda has committed acts on a scale that transcends mere crime, as recognized by NATO immediately after the attacks of September 11th. Their crimes are therefore nothing less than war crimes. Given the magnitude of the atrocities al Qaeda has committed, there can be no comparison between the crimes of its members and that of common civilian criminals."

"Today’s gathering is particularly important because I must speak bluntly and urgently, about the single most important part of our jobs: preventing terrorist attacks on American soil. Our success or failure in this endeavor will define in the eyes of some President Bush and his legacy. Right or wrong, this is a task that will also define my government career and, indeed, to some degree my professional life. It will be the legacy of every one of us who is serving in this Administration. Terrorists chose to attack us. But it is we who must now choose — today, tomorrow, the day after that and the day after that, until the end of our government service — to do everything in our powers to stop them from striking again."

"Because I worked at the White House on 9/11, I carry the memories and the pain of that day in a wound that is particularly deep — one that is very personal. Some of you were not in government on 9/11, and some are from parts of the country where people do not think much today about terrorism. I appreciate that some may not share the same sense of sadness and anger. But I must ask you to take on the perspective that President Bush and I had on September 11th and the days following — the brutal unprovoked murders of mothers and fathers — sons and daughters…the phone calls of desperate good byes…symbols of American wealth and power in flames and ruins. Five years have passed. I concede it may be difficult for some to stay committed to this mission — maintaining the necessary intensity and commitment — without that perspective."

"Dig deeply for the energy and the creativity that we need to continue this successful record of prevention — which is the goal of all goals when it comes to terrorism because we simply cannot and will not wait for the next terrorist act to occur before taking action. Continue to arm yourselves with the American ideals of hope and freedom — because they are so much stronger than terrorist ideals of fear and intolerance. Remind yourselves and your colleagues back in your offices — that for the sake of our children, we will prevail because we must."

"A strong and independent Judiciary is necessary for our republic to remain strong, for our democracy to survive, and for the rule of law to flourish. To understand what I mean by independence, let me first clarify what independence is not. Judicial independence does not mean complete freedom from scrutiny or criticism. Judges' decisions may be criticized, and the nature of the job virtually guarantees it. After all, in every court case there will be a loser. Judges must resist the temptation to craft their opinions to avoid criticism or to seek approval, whether from the press, the public, the academy, or Congress."

"Of course, the power and authority of courts — whether to improperly take policymaking power for themselves or to engage in legitimate decision making — is dependent upon the weight of their judgment. That is, it depends on their credibility with the public and the other branches of government. Judicial decisions are obeyed, in large part, because the judgment of the federal Judiciary is respected. But it is perhaps underappreciated that when courts apply an activist philosophy that stretches the law to suit policy preferences, they actually reduce the credibility and authority of the Judiciary. In so doing, they undermine the rule of law that strengthens our democracy. In contrast, a judge who humbly understands the role of the courts in our tripartite system of government decides cases based on neutral principles. He generally defers to the judgment of the political branches, and respects precedent – the collective wisdom of those who have gone before. In so doing, that judge strengthens respect for the Judiciary, upholds the rule of law, and permits the people — through their elected representatives — to make choices about the issues of the day."

"I also am concerned about judges who imagine they see everything in society addressed in the Constitution. It is worth remembering that the Constitution is a very brief document. It defines the structure and authority of the federal government and protects a limited list of sacred rights. It does not, and was never intended to, address every legal issue that might arise in our nation’s history. Democracy is well-served when the Court says, in effect, "the Constitution simply does not comment on this issue." In contrast, constitutionalizing an issue takes it out of the democratic process. If the people disagree with a court decision based on the law, they have a remedy in the political process. Through their elected representatives, they can change the law. But once a court declares a law to be unconstitutional or prohibits some agency action on constitutional grounds, it is limiting the options of the people. Such a step should be taken only where it is clear that the Constitution has truly spoken on the issue and forbidden what the political branches have determined to do."

"We want to determine whether he understands the inherent limits that make an unelected Judiciary inferior to Congress or the President in making policy judgments. That, for example, a judge will never be in the best position to know what is in the national security interests of our country."

"Florida's Southern all right. Why North Florida and South Georgia are about the same, same folks, same ways, same ways of making a living. Florida is a Southern state sharing the fate of the South. Of course, North Florida and South Florida are different. There are a lot of Northerners in the South and they're different from the old farm and plantation folks in the North. They usually say down here that Ocala is about the dividing line."

"ALL PRECEDENTS ARE UNDER THE CONTROUL OF THE PRINCIPLES OF THE LAW … No Acts of Parliament can establish such a writ [writ of assistance enabling British search of homes for no reason]: … it would be void, "AN ACT AGAINST THE CONSTITUTION IS VOID." Vid. Viner. But … special writs may be granted on oath and probable suspicion."

"If we are not represented, we are slaves."

"England may as well dam up the waters of the Nile, with bulrushes, as to fetter the step of freedom, more proud and firm in this youthful land, than where she treads the sequestered glens of Scotland, or couches herself among the magnificent mountains of Switzerland. Arbitrary principles, like those, against which we now contend, have cost one king of England his life, another, his crown — and they may yet cost a third his most flourishing colonies. We are two millions — one fifth fighting men. We are bold and vigorous, — and we call no man master. To the nation, from whom we are proud to derive our origin, we ever were, and we ever will be, ready to yield unforced assistance; but it must not, and it never can be extorted. Some have sneeringly asked, "Are the Americans too poor to pay a few pounds on stamped paper? No! America, thanks to God and herself, is rich. But the right to take ten pounds, implies the right to take a thousand; and what must be the wealth, that avarice, aided by power, cannot exhaust? True the spectre is now small; but the shadow he casts before him, is huge enough to darken all this fair land."

"The only principles of public conduct that are worthy of a gentleman or a man are to sacrifice estate, ease, health, and applause, and even life, to the sacred calls of his country. These manly sentiments, in private life, make good citizens; in public life, the patriot and the hero. I do not say that, when brought to the test, I shall be invincible. I pray God I may never be brought to the melancholy trial; but, if ever I should, it will then be known how far I can reduce to practice principles which I know to be founded in truth. In the meantime I will proceed to the subject of this writ."

"An act against the Constitution is void; an act against natural equity is void."

"Now, one of the most essential branches of English liberty is the freedom of one's house. A man's house is his castle; and whilst he is quiet, he is as well guarded as a prince in his castle. This writ, if it should be declared legal, would totally annihilate this privilege. Custom-house officers may enter our houses when they please; we are commanded to permit their entry. Their menial servants may enter, may break locks, bars, and everything in their way; and whether they break through malice or revenge, no man, no court can inquire. Bare suspicion without oath is sufficient."

"But to show another absurdity in this writ: if it should be established, I insist upon it every person, by the 14th Charles Second, has this power as well as the custom-house officers. The words are: "It shall be lawful for any person or persons authorized," etc. What a scene does this open! Every man prompted by revenge, ill-humor, or wantonness to inspect the inside of his neighbor's house, may get a Writ of Assistance. Others will ask it from self-defence; one arbitrary exertion will provoke another, until society be involved in tumult and in blood."

"Kingcraft and priestcraft have fell out so often, that 'tis a wonder this grand and ancient alliance is not broken off forever. Happy for mankind will it be when such a separation shall take place."

"The end of the government being the good of mankind points out its great duties: it is above all things to provide for the security, the quiet, the happy enjoyment of life, liberty, and property."

"If life, liberty, and property could be enjoyed in as great perfection in solitude as in society, there would be no need of government."

"… [Slave] trade … is the most shocking violation of the law of nature, has a direct tendency to diminish … liberty, and makes every dealer in it a tyrant, from the director of an African company to the petty chapman [peddler]…. The colonists are by the law of nature free-born, as indeed all men are, white or black...It is a clear truth, that those who every day barter away other men's liberty will soon care little for their own."

"Taxes are not to be laid on the people but by their consent in person or by deputation."

"Taxation without representation is tyranny."

"Senator, when you took your oath of office, you placed your hand on the Bible and swore to uphold the Constitution. You didn't place your hand on the Constitution and swear to uphold the Bible."

"Senators! This trial is not about Donald Trump, the country and the world know who Donald Trump is! This trial is about who we are... who we are"

"“Remember what the mob chanted as they stormed the Capitol and injured our officers? ‘Hang Mike Pence!' Someone should have told Donald Trump that the president’s job under Article II of the Constitution is to take care that the laws are faithfully executed, not that the vice president is executed!”"

"Well, you know, that's the problem in America, we're always having elections."

"“We were the first to assert that the more complicated the forms assumed by civilization, the more restricted the freedom of the individual must become.” Benito Mussolini"

"Since so-called Democratic Socialists have forgotten or never learned the lessons of history, and how their ideology is incompatible with freedom, I guess we have to remind or teach them."

"America stands with Ukraine, and we will do everything we can to help them defend themselves against the Russian Federation."

"In case you missed it, while the GOP is calling paying a living wage “socialism,” a Republican Senator full-on quoted National Fascist Party leader and Hitler ally Benito Mussolini like it’s a Hallmark card."

"I fear that, eventually, we are all going to become collateral damage in the war on drugs, or terrorism, or whatever war is in vogue at the moment."

"Take the whole range of imaginative literature, and we are all wholesale borrowers. In every matter that relates to invention, to use, or beauty or form, we are borrowers."

"Write on my gravestone: "Infidel, Traitor" — infidel to every church that compromises with wrong; traitor to every government that oppresses the people."

"Revolutions are not made; they come. A revolution is as natural a growth as an oak. It comes out of the past. Its foundations are laid far back."

"What gunpowder did for war, the printing press has done for the mind, and the statesman is no longer clad in the steel of special education, but every reading man is his judge."

"The best use of laws is to teach men to trample bad laws under their feet."

"Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty — power is ever stealing from the many to the few…. The hand entrusted with power becomes … the necessary enemy of the people. Only by continual oversight can the democrat in office be prevented from hardening into a despot: only by unintermitted Agitation can a people be kept sufficiently awake to principle not to let liberty be smothered in material prosperity."

"What the Puritans gave the world was not thought, but action."

"Truth is one forever, absolute; but opinion is truth filtered through the moods, the blood, the disposition, of the spectator."

"In God's world there are no majorities, no minorities; one, on God's side, is a majority."

"Every man meets his Waterloo at last."

"Whether in chains or in laurels, Liberty knows nothing but victories."

"Difference of religion breeds more quarrels than difference of politics."

"I think the first duty of society is justice."

"Revolutions never go backward."

"[T]he Negro race, instead of being that object of pity or contempt which we usually consider it, is entitled, judged by the facts of history, to a place close by the side of the Saxon."

"[R]aces love to be judged in two ways—by the great men they produce, and by the average merit of the mass of the race."

"Aristocracy is always cruel."

"He who stifles free discussion, secretly doubts whether what he professes to believe is really true."

"Corruption does not so much rot the masses: it poisons Congress. Credit-Mobilier and money rings are not housed under thatched roofs: they flaunt at the Capitol. As usual in chemistry, the scum floats uppermost."

"The agitator must stand outside of organizations, with no bread to earn, no candidate to elect, no party to save, no object but truth — to tear a question open and riddle it with light."

"To be as good as our fathers we must be better."

"Sit not, like the figure on our silver coin, looking ever backward."

"Be not dismayed by a defeat. What is defeat! Nothing but education, nothing but the first step to something better."

"Mrs. R. (Ernestine Rose) and myself were talking of the know nothing organizations, when she criticized Lucy Stone and Wendell Philips with regard to their feelings toward foreigners. Said she had heard them both express themselves in terms of prejudice against granting to foreigners the rights of Citizenship."

"Wendell Phillips, whose wife was part of the American delegation, introduced a counter-motion that the women be seated as full delegates. He spoke: "It is the custom there in America not to admit colored men into respectable society; and we have been told again and again that we are outraging the decencies of humanity when we permit colored men to sit by our side. When we have submitted to brick-bats and the tar-tub and feathers in New England rather than yield to the custom prevalent there to not admitting colored brethren into our friendship, shall we yield to parallel custom or prejudice against women in Old England? We cannot yield this question... for it is a matter of conscience.... We have argued it over and over again, and decided it time after time, in every society in the land, in favor of the women... It is a matter of conscience, and British virtue ought not to ask us to yield.""

"The ancients were always distinguished—especially the Chaldean astrologers and Magians—for their ardent love and pursuit of knowledge in every branch of science... As chemists they were unequalled, and in his famous lecture on The Lost Arts, Wendell Phillips says: “ The chemistry of the most ancient period had reached a point which we have never even approached.” The secret of the malleable glass, which, “if supported by one end by its own weight, in twenty hours dwindles down to a fine line that you can curve around your wrist,” would be as difficult to rediscover in our civilized countries as to fly to the moon. p. 50"

"Wendell Phillips states that he has a friend who possesses an extraordinary ring “ perhaps three-quarters of an inch in diameter, and on it is the naked figure of the god Hercules. By the aid of glasses, you can distinguish the interlacing muscles, and count every separate hair on the eyebrows. p. 240 In his lecture on the Lost Arts, Wendell Phillips very artistically describes the situation. “We seem to imagine/' says he, “ that whether knowledge will die with us or not, it certainly began with us. . . . We have a pitying estimate, a tender pity for the narrowness, ignorance, and darkness of the bygone ages.” p. 534"

"Mister Toombs was willing to dissolve the Union to save slavery, Mister Phillips, to save liberty; while Mister Seward, denounced and derided by both, declared that the deepest instinct of the American people was for union. Reserved rights. State rights, limited powers, the advantages of union and disunion, were the cucumbers from which we were busily engaged in distilling light, overlooking the fact of nationality in discussing the conditions of union. We were speculating upon costume. We gravely proved that the clothes were the clothes of a woman, or of a child, without seeing that whatever the clothes might be there was a full-grown man inside of them. "The Constitution is a contract between sovereign States", shouted Mister Toombs, "let Georgia tear it and separate". "The Constitution is a league with hell", calmly replied Mister Phillips, "let New York cut off New Orleans to rot alone". "Oh, dear! it"s a dreadful dilemma", whimpered President Buchanan. "States have no right to secede, and the United States have no right to coerce. Oh, dear me! it"s perfectly awful! I"m the most patriotic of men, but what shall I do? what shall I do?" Separate! Cut off! Secede! It was of a living body they spoke, which, pierced anywhere, quivered everywhere."

"Robert G. Ingersoll and Wendell Phillips were the two greatest orators of their time, and probably of all time. Their power sprang from their passion for freedom, for truth, for justice, for a world filled with light and with happy human beings. But for this divine passion neither would have scaled the sublime heights of immortal achievement. The sacred fire burned within them and when they were aroused it flashed from their eyes and rolled from their inspired lips in torrents of eloquence. Had Ingersoll and Phillips devoted their lives to the practice of law for pay the divine fire within them would have burned to ashes and they would have died in mediocrity."

"The good Lord had had a chance for a long time before the abolition. I believe that there is a moral government; and that God reigns. I am no pessimist; I give thanks to the good Lord, and also to the good men through whom He has worked. Prominent among them was Garrison, and scarcely less so was Phillips..."

"All 13 of us graduates had orations, and mine was on Wendell Phillips. The great anti-slavery agitator had just died in February and I presume that some of my teachers must have suggested the subject, although it is quite possible that I chose it myself. But I was fascinated by his life and his work and took a long step toward a wider conception of what I was going to do."

"Phillips, the peerless, grand and brave,/A tower of strength to the outcast slave./Earth has no marble too pure and white/To enrol his name in golden light."

"behind them (The Masses staff) still throbbed the tradition of nineteenth-century American radicalism, the un-ambiguous nay-saying of Thoreau and the Abolitionists. This tradition implied that the individual person was still able to square off against the authority of the state; it signified a stance-one could not quite speak of it as a politics-of individual defiance and rectitude, little concerned because little involved with the complexities of society. The radicalism of nineteenth-century New England had been a radicalism of individual declaration far more than of collective action; and while Max Eastman and his friends were indeed connected with a movement, the Socialist party of Debs, in essential spirit they were intellectual freebooters, more concerned with speaking out than speaking to. They swore by Marx, but behind them could still be heard the voices of Thoreau and Wendell Phillips-and it was a good thing."

"In 1834, a Boston mob dragging William Lloyd Garrison through the streets with a rope around his neck, was observed by the young lawyer Wendell Phillips, offspring of a wealthy and respected family. He was so incensed by the sight that he joined in Garrison's defense and soon became one of the leading and most militant abolitionists."

"Women are stripped to the skin in the presence of leering, white-skinned, black-hearted brutes and lashed into insensibility and strangled to death from the limbs of trees. A girl child of fifteen years was lynched recently by these brutal bullies. Where has justice fled? The eloquence of Wendell Phillips is silent now. John Brown’s body lies moldering in the grave. But will his spirit lie there moldering, too? Brutes, inhuman monsters—you heartless brutes—you whom nature forms by molding you in it, deceive not yourselves by thinking that another John Brown will not arise."

"It's just what Wendell Phillips said," she declared. "'The Puritan's idea of hell is a place where everybody has to mind his own business.'"

"Wendell Phillips says, “The best and greatest thing one is capable of doing, that is his sphere.”"

"Worry: Interest we pay on trouble before it is due."

"I will undoubtedly have to seek what is happily known as gainful employment, which I am glad to say does not describe holding public office."

"Great Britain has lost an Empire and has not yet found a role."

"The first requirement of a statesman is that he be dull. This is not always easy to achieve."

"I am willing to join in your statement on the ground that I feel about the future of the United States whenever the President starts out on his travels the way the Marshal of the Supreme Court does when he opens a session of that Court. You will recall that he ends up his liturgy by saying "God save the United States for the Court is now sitting."

"A memorandum is written not to inform the reader but to protect the writer."

"Vietnam was worse than immoral — it was a mistake."

"How could the USA champion individual freedom in the world generally while denying it to an important minority in its own country."

"The experiences of the years...have brought the country, particularly its young people, to a mood of depression, disillusion, and withdrawal from the effort to affect the world."

"In response, Acheson wrote to "tell a tale of large conceptions, great achievements...Its hero is the American people.""

"Plainly plenty of work was waiting to be done. The question was: would the State Department do it? I proposed to have a shot at finding out."

"General Marshall was "impatient with a type of nonsense particularly prevalent in the State Department known as 'kicking the problem around.' All of us who have work with General Marshall have reported a recurring outburst of his: 'Don't fight the problem, gentlemen, solve it!' With him the time to be devoted to analysis of a problem, to balancing 'on the one hand' against 'on the other hand,' was definitely limited. The discussion he wanted was about plans of action""

"I must plead guilty as any of escaping into immediate busywork to keep from the far harder task of peering into a dim future, which, of course, should be one of a diplomat's main duties."

"My memory...is of a department without direction, composed of a lot of busy people working hard and usefully but as a whole not functioning as a foreign office. It did not chart a course to be furthered by the success of our arms, or to aid or guide our arms. Rather it seems to have been adrift carried hither and yon by the currents of war or pushed about by collisions with more purposeful craft."

"...the Assistant Secretary in Charge of Administration (was) a job which should be undertaken only by a saint or a fool...the House and Senate subcommittees in charge of appropriations, their chairmen, and the Comptroller General's office make this job a perfect hell. Like an ill-tempered chatelaine of a medieval manor, her keys hanging from her belt, Congress parsimoniously and suspiciously doles out supplies for the shortest time, each item meticulously weighed and measured, each request at first harshly denied. Almost simultaneously yesterday's accounting goes on amid screamed accusation and denunciation of every purpose of policy.""

"Among the roles the Budget Bureau (now OMB) was that of constant critic and improver of administration in the federal executive branch. In my day this work had fallen to the products of graduate schools in civil administration. Their ideas...seemed to me theoretical nonsense."

"The heads of these divisions, like barons in a feudal system weakened at the top by mutual suspicion and jealousy between king and prince, were constantly at odds if not at war...For the most part the barons were knowledgeable people performing in a way the times had completely outdated, a fact of which they were quite unaware."

"I soon discovered that the greater part of a day in Old State was devoted to meetings. Where the boundaries of jurisdiction were fuzzy or overlapping, meetings became inevitable. Most questions affected a number of functional and geographic divisions...These meetings gave the illusion of action, but often frustrated it by attempting to reconcile the irreconcilable. What was most often needed was not compromise but decision."

"When Acheson was first joined State as Assistant Secretary for Economic Affairs, he writes the following in a section entitled "My Search for a Function"..."My official duties were summed up in the Department of State Bulletin by misleading platitudes...Both (Secretary) Hull and the President...knew me and, surely, had not asked me into the Department to perform the largely nonexistent duties defined in the Bulletin.""

""...old inhabitants of the bureaucratic jungle like (Secretary) Hull knew that Cabinet boards and committees were paper tigers. They made a fine show in a parade but soon dissolved in the rain...After attend a few meetings (of this board), the Secretary deputized me to 'explain his absence' and substitute for him."

"Not all the arts of diplomacy are learned solely in its practice. There are other exercise yards.""

"No change (Marshall replacing former SecDef. Louis Johnson, who, soon after he resigned, was diagnosed with a fatal "brain malady") could have been more welcome to me. It brought only one embarrassment. The General (Marshall) insisted, overruling every protest of mine, in meticulously observing the protocol involved in my being the senior Cabinet officer. Never would he go through a door before me, or walk anywhere but on my left; he would go around an automobile to enter it after me and sit on the left; in meetings he would insist on my speaking before him. To be treated so by a revered and beloved former chief was a harrowing experience. But the result in government was, I think, unique in the history of the Republic. For the first time and perhaps, though I am not sure, the last, the Secretaries of State and Defense, with their top advisors, met with the Chiefs of Staff in their map room and discussed common problems together. At one of these meetings General Bradley and I made a treaty, thereafter scrupulously observed. The phrases 'from a military point of view' and 'from a political point of view' were excluded from our talks. No such dichotomy existed. Each of us had our tactical and strategic problems, but they were interconnected, not separate."

"In the State Department, one never lacks for helpful suggestions."

"Unfortunately, the hyperbole of the inaugural outran the provisions of the budget."

"President Truman used to say that budget figures revealed far more of proposed policy than speeches."

"147, on the situation in Greece: "imminent collapse due to mounting guerrilla activity, supplied and directed from outside, economic chaos, and the Greek governmental inability to meet the crisis.""

"On the need to respond to the crisis in Greece, and broaching the subject of the Truman Doctrine ("it must be the policy of the United States to support free people who are resisting attempted subjugation by armed minorities or outside pressures.") with Congress: "In the past eighteen months, I said, Soviet pressure on the Straits, on Iran, and on northern Greece had brought the Balkans to the point where a highly possible Soviet breakthrough might open three continents to Soviet penetration. Like apples in a barrel infected by one rotten one, the corruption of Greece would infect Iran and all to the east. It would also carry infection to Africa through Asia Minor and Egypt, and to Europe through Italy and France, already threatened by the strongest domestic Communist parties in Western Europe. The Soviet Union was playing one of the greatest gambles in history at minimal cost. It did not need to will all the possibilities. Even one or two offered immense gains. We and we alone were in a position to break up the play. These were the stakes that British withdrawal from the eastern Mediterranean offered to an eager and ruthless opponent.""

"Only immediate assertion of leadership by the United States could prevent war in the next decade...The President and the Secretary of State must shock the country into a realization of its peril..."

"On the France's Indochina involvement: "They were engaged in the most dangerous of all activities – deceiving themselves...France was engaged in a task beyond her strength, indeed, beyond the strength of any external power unless it was acting in support of the dominant local will and purpose.""

"The test for aid to poor nations is therefore whether it makes them capable of being productive. If it fails to do so, it is likely to make them even poorer in the – not so very – long run."

"I did not share President's view on the Palestine solution...The number that could be absorbed by Arab Palestine without creating a grave political problem would be inadequate, and to transform the country into a Jewish state capable of receiving a million or more immigrants would vastly exacerbate the political problem and imperil not only American but all Western influence in the Near East."

"President (Truman) observed (that) 'to asure the Arabs that they would be consulted (prior to official US recognition of Israel) was by no means inconsistent with my generally sympathetic attitudes toward Jewish aspirations.' The Arabs may be forgiven for believing that this did not exactly state the inconsistency as they saw it."

"Throughout the Near East lay rare tinder for anti-Western propaganda: a Moslem culture and history, bitter Arab nationalism galled by Jewish immigration under British protection and with massive American financial support, the remnants of a colonial status, and a sense of grievance that a vast natural resource was being extracted by foreigners under arrangements thought unfair to those living on the surface. This tinder could be, and was, lighted everywhere..."

"I was a frustrated schoolteacher, persisting against overwhelming evidence to the contrary in the belief that the human mind could be moved by facts and reason."

"The position of the United States had undergone a drastic change; the purpose and capabilities of the State Department had not."

"a "mixture of frustration and progress is the daily grind of foreign affairs.""

"… the situation was still too delicate for complete candor and the ultimate truth too unformed for statement."

"The qualities which produce the dogged, unbeatable courage of the British, personified at the time by Winston Churchill, can appear in other settings as stubbornness bordering on stupidity."

"The best environment for diplomacy is found where mutual confidence between governments exists..."

"The conclusion was...unpalatable to believers in American omnipotence, to whom every goal unattained is explicable only by incompetence or treason."

"It is a mistake to interpret too literally and sweepingly the poet's admonition that things are not what they seem. Sometimes they are, and it is often essential to survival to know when they are and when they are not."

"… talk should precede, not follow, the issuance of orders."

"Force can overcome force, but a free society cannot long steel itself to dominate another people by sheer force."

"There is perhaps nothing more important in the world today than the steadiness and consistency of the foreign policy of this Republic. Too much depends on the United States for us to indulge in the luxury of either undue pessimism or premature optimism."

"The simple truth is that perseverance in good policies is the only avenue to success..."

"My constant appeal to American liberals was to face the long, hard years and not to distract us with the offer of short cuts and easy solutions begotten by good will out of the angels of man's better nature...The road to freedom and peace is a hard one."

"If I have said nothing new tonight, it may well be because, in a family of nations as in families of individuals we should expect nothing more sensational than growth."

"To State Department employees: "Yours is not an easy task nor one which is much appreciated. You don't ask much of your fellow citizens, and if any of you are so inexperienced that you ever do, you will receive very little. Certainly not much in the form of material recompense; certainly not much in the form of appreciation for your work, because you are dealing with matters which, though they affect life of every citizen of this country intimately, do it in ways which it is not easy for every citizen to understand. And so you are dealing in a field which I called the other day a field of 'alien knowledge,' which seems strange to many of your fellow citizens … We have a tradition in this country of skepticism about government, of looking at it very carefully, of seeing whether our public servants can take it. That isn't always comfortable, but, on the whole, it is good. Any time when there are governments in the world which are crushing the liberties of their citizens, it is good that in this great country people look with some skepticism upon government as such. That is one of our traditions … ""

"Acheson's State Department "comrades...played a vital role in setting the main lines of American foreign policy for many years to come and...they may feel in their hearts that it was nobly done.""

"Acheson "never for one moment believed that the holding of office was a source of power – it was an obligation of service.""

"Wake up, America. Your liberties are being stolen before your very eyes. What Washington, Jefferson and Lincoln fought for, Truman, Acheson, and McGrath are striving desperately to nullify. Wake up, Americans, and dare to think and say and do. Dare to cry: No More War!"

"As you know, very recently the secretary of state proclaimed his loyalty to a man guilty of what has always been considered as the most abominable of all crimes — of being a traitor to the people who gave him a position of great trust. The secretary of state, in attempting to justify his continued devotion to the man who sold out the Christian world to the atheistic world, referred to Christ's Sermon on the Mount as a justification and reason therefore, and the reaction of the American people to this would have made the heart of Abraham Lincoln happy. When this pompous diplomat in striped pants, with a phony British accent, proclaimed to the American people that Christ on the Mount endorsed communism, high treason, and betrayal of a sacred trust, the blasphemy was so great that it awakened the dormant indignation of the American people. He has lighted the spark which is resulting in a moral uprising and will end only when the whole sorry mess of twisted warped thinkers are swept from the national ugly so ugly that we may have a new birth of national honesty and decency in government."

"For better or worse, we are the Court of Appeals for the Hollywood Circuit. Millions of people toil in the shadow of the law we make, and much of their livelihood is made possible by the existence of intellectual property rights. But much of their livelihood - and much of the vibrancy of our culture - also depends on the existence of other intangible rights: The right to draw ideas from a rich and varied public domain, and the right to mock, for profit as well as fun, the cultural icons of our time."

"The parties are advised to chill."

"In a very real sense, the Constitution is our compact with history . . . [but] the Constitution can maintain that compact and serve as the lodestar of our political system only if its terms are binding on us. To the extent we depart from the document's language and rely instead on generalities that we see written between the lines, we rob the Constitution of its binding force and give free reign to the fashions and passions of the day."

"Overprotecting intellectual property is as harmful as underprotecting it. Creativity is impossible without a rich public domain. Nothing today, likely nothing since we tamed fire, is genuinely new: Culture, like science and technology, grows by accretion, each new creator building on the works of those who came before. Overprotection stifles the very creative forces it's supposed to nurture.""

"Just to prove that even the silliest idea can be pursued to its illogical conclusion, Legal Realism spawned Critical Legal Studies."

"This is really a pretty good system you have here. What do you call it? "Due process". We're very proud of it."

"The majority falls prey to the delusion—popular in some circles—that ordinary people are too careless and stupid to own guns, and we would be far better off leaving all weapons in the hands of professionals on the government payroll. But the simple truth—born of experience—is that tyranny thrives best where government need not fear the wrath of an armed people."

"Appellate review is not a magic wand and we undermine public confidence in the judicial process when we make it look like it is."

"Membership in the bar is a privilege burdened with conditions."

"Consequences cannot alter statutes, but may help to fix their meaning."

"The defendant styles herself "a creator of fashions." Her favor helps a sale. Manufacturers of dresses, millinery and like articles are glad to pay for a certificate of her approval. The things which she designs, fabrics, parasols and what not, have a new value in the public mind when issued in her name. She employed the plaintiff to help her to turn this vogue into money."

"The law has outgrown its primitive stage of formalism when the precise word was the sovereign talisman, and every slip was fatal. It takes a broader view to-day. A promise may be lacking, and yet the whole writing may be "instinct with an obligation," imperfectly expressed. If that is so, there is a contract."

"Danger invites rescue. … The wrongdoer may not have foreseen the coming of a deliverer. He is accountable as if he had."

"Fulfillment may fall short of expectation. At least there has been gained a foothold from which occasion can be seized."

"Inaction without more is not tantamount to choice."

"The whole problem of the relation between parent and subsidiary corporations is one that is still enveloped in the mists of metaphor. Metaphors in law are to be narrowly watched, for starting as devices to liberate thought, they end often by enslaving it. We say at times that the corporate entity will be ignored when the parent corporation operates a business through a subsidiary which is characterized as an 'alias' or a 'dummy.'... Dominion may be so complete, interference so obtrusive, that by the general rules of agency the parent will be a principal and the subsidiary an agent."

"Not honesty alone, but the punctilio of an honor the most sensitive, is then the standard of behavior."

"Fraud includes the pretense of knowledge when knowledge there is none."

"Expediency may tip the scales when arguments are nicely balanced."

"Prophecy, however honest, is generally a poor substitute for experience."

"Price security, we are told, is only a special form of sanitary security; the economic motive is secondary and subordinate; the state intervenes to make its inhabitants healthy, and not to make them rich. On that assumption we are asked to say that intervention will be upheld as a valid exercise by the state of its internal police power, though there is an incidental obstruction to commerce between one state and another. This would be to eat up the rule under the guise of an exception. Economic welfare is always related to health, for there can be no health if men are starving. Let such an exception be admitted, and all that a state will have to do in times of stress and strain is to say that its farmers and merchants and workmen must be protected against competition from without, lest they go upon the poor relief lists or perish altogether. To give entrance to that excuse would be to invite a speedy end of our national solidarity. The Constitution was framed under the dominion of a political philosophy less parochial in range. It was framed upon the theory that the peoples of the several states must sink or swim together, and that in the long run prosperity and salvation are in union and not division."

"Due process is a growth too sturdy to succumb to the infection of the least ingredient of error."

"Of that freedom [of thought and speech] one may say that it is the matrix, the indispensable condition, of nearly every other form of freedom."

"Justice is not to be taken by storm. She is to be wooed by slow advances. Substitute statute for decision, and you shift the center of authority, but add no quota of inspired wisdom."

"The repetition of a catchword can hold analysis in fetters for fifty years or more."

"With traps and obstacles and hazards confronting us on every hand, only blindness or indifference will fail to turn in all humility, for guidance or for warning, to the study of examples."

"As I search the archives of my memory I seem to discern six types or methods which divide themselves from one another with measurable distinctness. There is the type magisterial or imperative; the type laconic or sententious; the type conversational or homely; the type refined or artificial, smelling of the lamp, verging at times upon preciosity or euphuism; the demonstrative or persuasive; and finally the type tonsorial or agglutinative, so called from the shears and the pastepot which are its implements and emblem."

"Method is much, technique is much, but inspiration is even more."

"The judicial process is one of compromise, a compromise between paradoxes, between certainty and uncertainty, between the literalism that is the exaltation of the written word and the nihilism that is destructive of regularity and order."

"In truth, I am nothing but a plodding mediocrity — please observe, a plodding mediocrity — for a mere mediocrity does not go very far, but a plodding one gets quite a distance. There is joy in that success, and a distinction can come from courage, fidelity and industry."

"You will study the wisdom of the past, for in a wilderness of conflicting counsels, a trail has there been blazed. You will study the life of mankind, for this is the life you must order, and, to order with wisdom, must know. You will study the precepts of justice, for these are the truths that through you shall come to their hour of triumph. Here is the high emprise, the fine endeavor, the splendid possibility of achievement, to which I summon you and bid you welcome."

"There comes not seldom a crisis in the life of men, of nations, and of worlds, when the old forms seem ready to decay, and the old rules of action have lost their binding force. The evils of existing systems obscure the blessings that attend them; and, where reform is needed, the cry is raised for subversion."

"Again and again, the altruist has arisen in politics, has bidden us share with others the product of our toil, and has proclaimed the communistic dogma as the panacea for our social ills. So today, amid the buried hopes and buried projects of the past, the doctrine of communism still lives in the minds of men. Under stress of misfortune, or in dread of tyranny, it is still preached in modern times as Plato preached it in the world of the Greeks. Yet it is indeed doubtful whether, in the history of mankind, a doctrine was ever taught more impracticable or more false to the principles it professes than this very doctrine of communism. In a world where self-interest is avowedly the ruling motive, it seeks to establish at once an all-reaching and all-controlling altruism. In a world where every man is pushing and fighting to outstrip his fellows, it would make him toil with like vigor for their common welfare. In a world where a man's activity is measured by the nearness of reward, it would hold up a prospective recompense as an equal stimulant to labor. … In the future, when the remoteness of his reward shall have weakened the laborer's zeal, we shall be able to judge more fairly of the blessings that the communist offers."

"It is the refutation alike of communism and socialism that they thwart the instinct of expansion; that they substitute for individual energy the energy of the government; that they substitute for human personality the blind, mechanical power of the State. The one system, as the other, marks the end of individualism. The one system, as the other, would make each man the image of his neighbor. The one system, as the other, would hold back the progressive, and, by uniformity of reward, gain uniformity of type. I can look forward to no blissful prospect for a race of men that, under the dominion of the State, at the cost of all freedom of action, at the cost, indeed, of their own true selves, shall enjoy, if one will, a fair abundance of the material blessings of life. … Into that prison of socialism, with broken enterprise and broken energy, as serfs under the mastery of the State, while human personality is preferred to unreasoning mechanism, mankind must hesitate to step."

"There is in each of us a stream of tendency, whether you choose to call it philosophy or not, which gives coherence and direction to thought and action. Judges cannot escape that current any more than other mortals. All their lives, forces which they do not recognize and cannot name, have been tugging at them — inherited instincts, traditional beliefs, acquired convictions; and the resultant is an outlook on life, a conception of social needs. … In this mental background every problem finds it setting. We may try to see things as objectively as we please. None the less, we can never see them with any eyes except our own."

"The great generalities of the constitution have a content and a significance that vary from age to age."

"It is well enough to say that we shall be consistent, but consistent with what? . . . The origins of the rule? The course and tendency of development? With logic or philosophy? With the fundamental conceptions of jurisprudence? All these loyalties are possible. All have sometimes prevailed."

"My analysis of the judicial process comes then to this, and little more: logic, and history, and custom, and utility, and the accepted standards of right conduct, are the forces which singly or in combination shape the progress of the law. Which of these forces dominate depends largely upon the comparative importance or value of the social interests that will be thereby promoted or impaired. … The most fundamental social interest is that law shall be uniform and impartial. … Uniformity ceases to be a good when it becomes uniformity of oppression."

"If you ask how he is to know when one interest outweighs another, I can only answer that he must get his knowledge just as the legislator gets it, from experience and study and reflection; in brief, from life itself."

"I am ready to concede that the rule of adherence to precedent, though it ought not to be abandoned, ought to be in some degree relaxed. I think that when a rule, after it has been duly tested by experience, has been found to be inconsistent with the sense of justice or with the social welfare, there should be less hesitation in frank avowal and full abandonment. … That court best serves the law which recognizes that the rules of law which grew up in a remote generation may, in the fullness of experience, be found to serve another generation badly, and which discards the old rule when it finds that another rule of law represents what should be according to the established and settled judgment of society."

"We like to picture to ourselves the field of law as accurately mapped and plotted. We draw our little lines, and they are hardly down before we blur them. As in time and space, so here. Divisions are working hypotheses, adopted for convenience. … So also the duty of a judge becomes itself a question of degree, and he is a useful judge or a poor one as he estimates the measure accurately or loosely. He must balance all his ingredients, his philosophy, his logic, his analogies, his history, his customs, his sense of right, and all the rest, and adding a little here and taking out a little there, must determine, as wisely as he can, which weight shall tip the scales."

"The judicial process, as was said at the outset of these lectures, is a process of search and comparison, and little else."

"I was much troubled in spirit, in my first years upon the bench, to find how trackless was the ocean on which I had embarked. I sought for certainty. I was oppressed and disheartened when I found that the quest for it was futile. I was trying to reach land, the solid land of fixed and settled rules, the paradise of a justice that would declare itself by tokens plainer and more commanding than its pale and glimmering reflections in my own vacillating mind and conscience."

"I have spoken of the forces of which judges avowedly avail to shape the form and content of their judgments. Even these forces are seldom fully in consciousness. They lie so near the surface, however, that their existence and influence are not likely to be disclaimed. But the subject is not exhausted with the recognition of their power. Deep below consciousness are other forces, the likes and the dislikes, the predilections and the prejudices, the complex of instincts and emotions and habits and convictions, which make the man, whether he be litigant or judge."

"The great tides and currents which engulf the rest of men do not turn aside in their course and pass the judges by."

"I sometimes think that we worry ourselves overmuch about the enduring consequences of our errors. They may work a little confusion for a time. In the end, they will be modified or corrected or their teachings ignored. The future takes care of such things. In the endless process of testing and retesting, there is a constant rejection of the dross, and a constant retention of whatever is pure and sound and fine."

"In our worship of certainty we must distinguish between the sound certainty and the sham, between what is gold and what is tinsel; and then, when certainty is attained, we must remember that it is not the only good; that we can buy it at too high a price; that there is danger in perpetual quiescence as well as in perpetual motion; and that a compromise must be found in a principle of growth."

"Magic words and incantations are as fatal to our science as they are to any other. Methods, when classified and separated, acquire their true bearing and perspective as a means to an end, not as ends in themselves. We seek to find peace of mind in the word, the formula, the ritual. The hope is an illusion."

"I do not underrate the yearning for mechanical and formal tests. They are possible and useful in zones upon the legal sphere. The pain of choosing is the pain of marking off such zones from others. It is a pain we must endure, for uniformity of method will carry us upon the rocks. The curse of this fluidity, of an ever shifting approximation, is one the law must bear, or other curses yet more dreadful will be invited in exchange."

"Code is followed by commentary, and commentary by revision, and thus the task is never done."

"The reconciliation of the irreconcilable, the merger of antitheses, the synthesis of opposites, these are the great problems of the law... We have the claims of stability to be harmonized with those of progress. We are to reconcile liberty with equality, and both of them with order. The property rights of the individual we are to respect, yet we are not to press them to the point at which they threaten the welfare or the security of the many. We must preserve to justice its universal quality, and yet leave to it the capacity to be individual and particular."

"The state in commissioning its judges has commanded them to judge, but neither in constitution nor in statute has it formulated a code to define the manner of their judging. The pressure of society invests new forms of conduct in the minds of the multitude with the sanction of moral obligation, and the same pressure working upon the mind of the judge invests them finally through his action with the sanction of the law."

"Our course of advance ... is neither a straight line nor a curve. It is a series of dots and dashes. Progress comes per saltum, by successive compromises between extremes, compromises often … between "positivism and idealism". The notion that a jurist can dispense with any consideration as to what the law ought to be arises from the fiction that the law is a complete and closed system, and that judges and jurists are mere automata to record its will or phonographs to pronounce its provisions."

"It comes down to this. There are certain forms of conduct which at any given place and epoch are commonly accepted under the combined influence of reason, practice and tradition, as moral or immoral. … Law accepts as the pattern of its justice the morality of the community whose conduct it assumes to regulate. In saying this, we are not to blind ourselves to the truth that uncertainty is far from banished. Morality is not merely different in different communities. Its level is not the same for all the component groups within the same community. A choice must still be made between one group standard and another. We have still to face the problem, at which one of these levels does the social pressure become strong enough to convert the moral norm into a jural one? All that we can say is that the line will be higher than the lowest level of moral principle and practice, and lower than the highest. The law will not hold the crowd to the morality of saints and seers. It will follow, or strive to follow, the principle and practice of the men and women of the community whom the social mind would rank as intelligent and virtuous."

"A judge is to give effect in general not to his own scale of values, but to the scale of values revealed to him in his readings of the social mind. … Objective tests may fail him, or may be confused as to bewilder. He must then look within himself."

"Liberty in the most literal sense is the negation of law for law is restraint, and the absence of restraint is anarchy. On the other hand, anarchy by destroying restraint would leave liberty the exclusive possession of the strong or the unscrupulous."

"What has once been settled by a precedent will not be unsettled overnight, for certainty and uniformity are gains not lightly sacrificed. Above all is this true when honest men have shaped their conduct on the faith of the pronouncement."

"They do things better with logarithms."

"Bills of rights give assurance to the individual of the preservation of his liberty. They do not define the liberty they promise."

"In our experience, no modern country is more repressive of human rights than the USA. The vaunted First Amendment is nothing but empty words on paper…we will journey to China at our expense, and tell our story of modern American repression of human rights, upon invitation."

"Homosexuals now pervade and control American government at every level and branch. Thus, only those churches that support and promote the militant homosexual agenda enjoy religious freedom. Any church in America that dares to preach what the Bible says about soul-damning, nation-destroying moral filth of the vile homosexual beasts among us, loses all Constitutional guarantees of religious freedom and speech rights."

"We understand that Iraq is the only Muslim state that allows the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ to be freely and openly preached on the streets without fear of arrest and prosecution. Alas, the United States no longer allows the Gospel to be freely and openly preached on the streets, because militant sodomites now control our government, and they violently object to the Bible message...The same majoritarian sodomite tyranny that now guides the Clinton administration's repressive policies toward Gospel preaching on America's streets, is apparently responsible — at least in part — for the merciless slaughter by starvation of 400 innocent Iraqi babies each day in your country. If our government and laws will allow it, and at the invitation of your government, we would like to send a delegation from Westboro Baptist Church in Topeka, Kansas, to preach the Gospel on the streets of Baghdad for one week in the near future."

"All ye having business before this honorable Court draw nigh, give your attention and ye shall be heard. No, no. Draw nigh and bend over. They're going to rape you up the butt!"

"You lying piece of shit!"

"Go have another helping of feces!"

"Oh, so good."

"I said the President of the United States gets his jollies masturbating horses!"

"Shut the hell up!"

"God hates America, and those calamities last Tuesday are none other than the wrath of God, smiting fag America... That wasn't any accident. That wasn't any coincidence. There's only America to blame for those tragedies."

"How many do you suppose of those hundred and thirty soldiers died in the Pentagon last Tuesday were fags and dykes? And how many do you suppose were working in that massively composed building structure called those two World Trade Center buildings, Twin Towers? There were five thousand or ten thousand killed and, counting all those passengers in those airplanes, it's very likely that every last single one of them was a fag or dyke or a fag enabler, and that the minute he died, he split hell wide open, and the way to analyze the situation is that the Lord God Almighty, pursuant to His threatenings and warnings, killed him, looked him in the face, laughed and mocked at each one of them as He cast each one of them into Hell!"

"God hates America, and God demonstrated that hatred to some modest degree only last Tuesday -- sent in those bombers, those hellacious 767 Boeing bombers, and it was a glorious sight. What you need to do is see in those flames -- those sickening, twisting, burning, life-destroying flames, brightly shining from every television set around the world! You need to see in those flames a little preview of the flames of Hell that are going to soon engulf you, my friend. Burn your soul forever!"

"You are a Bible pervert, Bush! And I knew it, the minute you hired that fag to run your White House and told Rumsfeld to hire that fag [Stephen] Herbits, Steven Herbits, to screen all the applicants for employment to the Pentagon."

"I tell you, my friends, it's a sin to pray for the USA. And nobody that's intelligent, and that fears God, will fly the American flag any way but upside-down, the international signal of distress... It's too late to pray for the USA."

"This evil nation has smeared fag feces blended with fag semen and dyke feces on the Bible!""

"Mr. Rogers gave aid and comfort to homosexuals. He was a man who preached tolerance of all sorts of people in ways that directly contradicted the Bible. His syrupy teachings led millions astray. He was a wuss and he was an enabler of wusses."

"Thank God for the tsunami, and thank God that two thousand dead Swedes are fertilizing the ground over there [in Asia]. How many of these two thousand, do you suppose, were fags and dykes? This is how the Lord deals with His enemies. And the Lord has got some enemies. And Sweden heads the list. You filthy Swedes. You filthy Swedes!"

"Bill O'Reilly is a demon-possessed messenger of Satan. O'Reilly regularly slanders Westboro Baptist Church on his program, and he only has guests who join him in slandering Westboro Baptist Church, and refuses to allow Westboro Baptist Church to respond! Thus, Bill O'Reilly is a blaspheming hell-bound hypocrite claiming to be fair and balanced and running a no-spin zone. Hah! O'Reilly is of his father the Devil."

"God hates fags! God hates America! Thank God for dead soldiers! You're going to hell!"

"Thank God for 9/11. Thank God that, five years ago, the wrath of God was poured out upon this evil nation. America, land of the sodomite damned. We thank thee, Lord God Almighty, for answering the prayers of those that are under the altar."

"We told you, right after it happened five years ago, that the deadly events of 9/11 were direct outpourings of divine retribution, the immediate visitation of God's wrath and vengeance and punishment for America's horrendous sodomite sins, that worse and more of it was on the way. We further told you that any politician, any political official, any preacher telling you differently as to the cause and interpretation of 9/11 is a dastardly lying false prophet, cowardly and mean, and headed for hell. And taking you with him! God is no longer with America, but is now America's enemy. God himself is now America's terrorist."

"Stiff-necked America, in flagrant rebellion against God, is indulging a caterwauling orgy of sinful maudlin cinementality on the 5th anniversary of God's 9/11 vengeance upon this evil nation for its sodomite sins!"

"For ten long weary years prior to 9/11, WBC warned you daily on the mean streets of this nation that your sodomite sins will be avenged by an angry God except you repent. You persecuted us for our trouble, thereby aggravating your great transgression. On 9/11/01, God Almighty dealt backsliding America a staggering blow."

"It is the obligation of Westboro Baptist Church to put the cup of God's fury to America's lips, and cause America to drink it. And you will drink it!"

"Same-sex marriage, by any name, civil union or otherwise, is the ultimate smashed-mouth in-your-face insult to God Almighty, and you think He's going to let England and America and the rest of this evil world get by with it? God Almighty has not joined fags in holy wedlock. God no longer keeps America safe. America is doomed. We're getting the pants beat off of us, in Iraq, in Afghanistan. God is now America's terrorist, that's who Bush is fighting, that's the terrorist that he best be afraid of. You tweaked His nose, you jackass, you tweaked His nose! God put it in your wicked heart to start that war. That's the message we've got at the funerals of these dead soldiers. God duped you into starting a war, so He could punish you. And any preacher preaching it any other way is a lying hell-bound false prophet. So almost eighteen months now and the siege has got people eating their babies, and their small children, and each other! You're going to eat your babies! God Himself duped Bush into a no-win war, and He did that by the technique of putting a lying spirit in the mouth of all his trusted advisers, to punish America."

"The Lord sent a world-class whopper of a massacre to Virginia Tech, killing thirty-three, drawing headlines like 'Shocked!', 'Horrified!', 'The worst massacre in US history!'. Well, we wish you were thirty-three thousand killed, but we are thankful to our Father for thirty-three."

"President Bush and thousands of others, politicians and preachers, are making speeches and lying in their teeth, all agreeing that they can't explain such tragedies, but they're just certain a loving God had nothing to do with the massacre. They say, evil did it, like Star Wars, some evil force."

"Bush said, in a big memorial service the other day, we've come to mourn and grieve and try to make some kind of sense out of this senseless tragedy that makes no sense. Well, wrong, President Bush. It makes perfect sense, to those who believe the Bible. [The victims of the massacre] died for America's sins and persecuting Westboro Baptist Church."

"God is punishing America for the way they have persecuted us at Westboro Baptist Church, and worse and more of [the Virginia Tech massacre] is coming and this evil sodomite nation is doomed."

"For sixteen years, America has conducted a crusade of terror against Westboro Baptist Church: bombing and vandalizing our property, raiding our church with lying search warrants, seizing and destroying our goods, assaulting and battering us, putting our people in the hospital, slandering, threatening us with death, suing us, prosecuting us, arresting and jailing us, blaspheming, mocking and scoffing at our message from God, vilifying us, demonizing and marginalizing us, a technique that they hope would silence all those who are trying to preach, saying that we're just a bunch of kooks... Only brute beast blindness explains America's conduct against Westboro Baptist Church. By refusing to heed Westboro Baptist Church, that God hates fags, and by continuing to persecute Westboro Baptist Church, America is pouring gasoline on the raging fires of God's wrath. America may expect many more dead and maimed bodies from Iraq, many more Katrinas and other natural disasters, and many more Virginia Tech massacres. Westboro Baptist Church rejoices, not grieves, when we see God's vengeance... Think, America. Think Iraq. Think Katrina. And think Virginia Tech massacre, because worse and more is on the way."

"On Tuesday, May 14, the old fat false prophet Jerry Falwell died and entered hell. As the old preacher used to put it, he split hell wide open... Hell from beneath was moved to meet Falwell at his coming, rousing the dead, even those that used to be bigshots on Earth now in hell greeting him with such words as these: 'Why, hello, Reverend Fraudwell, you old money-grubbing pervert!' ... As a young preacher in Springfield, Missouri, Falwell was a true Calvinistic Baptist preacher who believed and preached the truth. But he saw early on that his lust for power and lucre could never be satisfied if he was faithful to the word of God. And so the old fool like the false prophet Balaam sold his soul for a mess of free will-ism, God loves everybody-ism, Arminianism, lies — sold his soul for lies."

"We warned that WBC has had lots of experience with Ireland's militant sodomite citizenry, steeped for many decades in ignorant, blind idolatrous Catholicism, belching out their vile fagspeak, slander and blasphemy against God and His word."

"All [the Snyder v. Westboro Baptist Church case] was, was a protestation by the government of the United States against the word of God. They don't want me preaching that God is punishing America by killing those servicemen."

"The very idea of putting a preacher on trial for what he preaches, the very idea, you ought to be ashamed of yourselves!"

"George Carlin is now in hell, and it is not relevant that George Carlin boasted that he does not believe in hell when he lived on Earth. Be assured, Carlin believes in hell now... George Carlin, the filthy blasphemer, the obscene potty-mouth skeptic, agnostic and profane atheist, who had nothing but disdain for the God and the Bible all the days of his tragic life, is now at this minute and forever writhing and screaming in exquisite pain, pleading for mercy from that God he flipped off while performing for HBO lucre... When Carlin died, June 22nd, he split hell wide open...Hell from below was moved beneath thee at thy coming, it stirreth up the dead for thee. Are thou as weak as we George Carlin?! The worm is spread under thee and the worm covers thee.George Carlin is in hell. Deal with it. You will soon join him there. America is doomed. We will picket George Carlin's funeral..Amen!"

"Canada is a filthy country run by fags, which has Draconian laws making it a crime to preach the Gospel there. All of these cowardly kissy-poo preachers who telecast their milquetoast sermons into Canada have to edit out every single word critical of fags -- snip, snip, snip -- or the fag officials of Canada will arrest and criminally prosecute the Canadian affiliates, and shut down their stations! There's no freedom of speech in Canada. There's no freedom of religion in Canada. It is against the law to read the Bible in Canada."

"Our church has had a lot of bad dealings with those demon-possessed Canadians! A big Canadian flag flies at our church upside-down, the international symbol of distress. We fly it day and night, to educate and warn people about the fagi-nazi regime just to the north of us. Canadians are afraid of their tyrannical fag-run government. You can determine for yourself about Canada, and keep as far away from them as you can."

"God hates Australia, land of the sodomite damned! The fag-infested land of Australia is burning. The fire of God's wrath is sending hundreds of those filthy Australian beasts straight to hell! We at Westboro Baptist Church are rejoicing, and we are praying that the dear Lord would burn many more Australians alive!"

"Don't you stupid Aussies get it? Australia is doomed! Nothing, and nobody, can help you. You have sinned willfully after you have received knowledge of the truth."

"The president whose moral values would permit him to kill his unborn grandchildren if his daughters get pregnant by mistake, that same president has now issued a formal proclamation glorifying sodomite sin!"

"This evil man has proclaimed June as the month to be proud of abominable sins against God!... God then affixed the death penalty for doing what the LGBT fags do, fornicating day and night, and what Obama gratuitously said we must be proud of!"

"This jackass of a president ought to proclaim pride month for decency, abstinence and chastity, not for the most abominable sins known to mankind — in the estimation of God Almighty, that is. Obama will bring down the curses of God upon the whole creation. Remember, you ignorant Americans, you Obama-worshippers around the world, we warned you. He raises a false argument ordering that nobody discriminate against fags. Listen up, you Bible-ignorant moron! It is neither wrongful nor sinful to discriminate against sin!"

"You are good people."

"Thank God for the violent shooter, one of your soldier heroes in Tucson. God appointed the Afghanistan veteran to avenge himself on this evil nation. However many are dead, Westboro Baptist Church will picket their funerals. We will remind the living that you can still repent and obey. This is ultimatum time with God. Except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish. Luke 13:3. This nation unleashed criminal violent veterans on Westboro Baptist Church for telling you to obey God. We told you at your soldiers' funerals that they are dying for your sins. You hate those words and you will not stop sinning. So you sent violent veterans, so-called patriot guard riders, to attack and try to silence Westboro Baptist Church. Then you sent violent crippled veteran Ryan Newell with 90 rounds of ammunition, planning to shoot five Westboro Baptist Church members while picketing. God restrained the hand of them all, then he turned the violent veteran on you. 22-year-old Jared Loughner opened fire outside a Tucson, Arizona grocery store, shooting Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, Federal Judge John M. Roll, and sixteen others. At least six are dead and counting. Congress passed three laws against Westboro Baptist Church. Congresswoman Giffords, an avid supporter of sin and baby-killing, was shot for that mischief. A federal judge in Baltimore, part of the massive military community in Maryland and in the District of Columbia, put Westboro Baptist Church on trial for faithful words from God. Federal Judge Roll paid for those sins with his life. Today, mouthy witch Sarah Palin had Representative Giffords in her crosshairs on her website. She quick took it down, however, because she is a cowardly brute like the rest of you. The crosshairs to worry about are God's and he's put you in his and your destruction is upon you. You should have obeyed. This nation of violent murderers is in full rebellion against God. God avenged himself on you today by a marvelous work in Tucson. He sits in the heavens and laughs at you in your affliction. Westboro Baptist Church prays for more shooters, more violent veterans, and more dead. Praise God for his righteous judgments in this Earth. Amen."

"We need more Fred Phelps in this world. May you rest in peace sir. No, I'm not kidding! This world needs to get back to the biblical standards that our God made for us. This guy was not afraid to preach it, and I respect that."

"The Ku Klux Klan, LLC. has not or EVER will have ANY connection with The 'Westboro Baptist Church'. We absolutely repudiate their activities."

"Fred Phelps is a patriotic American, and we need more people like him to survive as a nation."

"I think that the pastor [Fred Phelps] is not a very nice person. I think he's an angry person who's twisted the Bible and picked and chosen verses that support his anger, that sort of justify his anger, and he's instilled that in his children and they've passed it on to their children. Although the second and third generation are by and large quite nice people from what I saw, they still live under the influence of their Gramps."

"There's a lot of weird stuff in [the Christian Bible] and when you take that and you add this angry, domineering kind of a father figure, which is Gramps [Fred Phelps] , and you add that he has sort of separated them off from other people, other families and driven them to achieve a lot, and he was kind of a charismatic guy, and still is up to a point. He was a very verbal, very persuasive, an extremely compelling speaker. All these things added together combined to make a powerful influence."

"But the heart of Calvinism is the doctrine of absolute predestination, which posits that in the council halls of eternity past, an omniscient and omnipotent god preordained who would be saved, and who would be damned. Mankind would have no say or choice in this, since they are dead in their trespasses and sin. If you are selected you gain eternal life. If you lose, you suffer the most extreme physical and mental anguish forever. My father has simply refined Calvin's doctrine to the point where the vast majority of us are going to hell. And he and his followers are among the privileged few chosen by God."

"I feel sorry for my father as I would for anyone who displays this kind of hate and evil viciousness. These can only be the manifestations of tortured, injured and agonizing souls."

"I was in Washington in the summer of 1963, [and] had the opportunity to participate in Dr. Martin Luther King's March on Washington, which culminated at the Lincoln memorial in his soaring 'I Have a Dream' speech. For me, this was America at its best. Hundreds of thousands of us, all religions, races, and nationalities, joined together peacefully but powerfully to petition our government to right the wrong of racial bigotry."

"We must rise above politics and restore independence to the White House, not compromise our economic or environmental or health security for political contributors or extreme ideologues … We must rise above partisan politics and stand up for our values here at home, because family and faith and responsibility matter more than power and partisanship and privilege. … I intend to talk straight to the American people and to show them that I'm a different kind of Democrat … I will not hesitate to tell my friends when I think they're wrong and to tell my opponents when I think they're right."

"I have consistently opposed a flag-burning amendment, and voted against its passage. Flag desecration is hateful and worthy of condemnation, and I would support any statory means possible to curtail desecration of the flag. But I believe that the importance of the Bill of Rights -- our nations founding document -- requires us to establish a very high threshold for agreeing to change it. does the amendment address some extreme threat to our country, or redress some outrageous wrong? In this case, abhorrent though flag desecration may be, it simply does not meet that test."

"The best thing we did with the Patriot Act was to sunset it. Almost 800 foreign nationals, immigrants, mostly Arab-Americans or people who looked like Arab-Americans, were arrested, put in jail, held without charges, no notification for their families and no right to counsel. That's un-American and I'll fight to end that. If we fight the terrorists who attacked us because of our liberties by compromising our liberties, shame on us."

"It is time for Democrats who distrust President Bush to acknowledge that he will be commander-in-chief for three more critical years, and that in matters of war we undermine Presidential credibility at our nation's peril."

"I urge the Bush Administration to rethink its priorities. We can't talk about community values without being prepared to invest in those very same communities."

"Shame on us if 100 or 200 years from now our grandchildren and great-grandchildren are living on a planet that has been irreparably damaged by global warming, and they ask, 'How could those who came before us, who saw this coming, have let this happen?'"

"I have great respect for Dick Cheney. I don't agree with a lot of things he said in this campaign. He was a very distinguished Secretary of Defense, and I don't have anything negative to say about him."

"There is also a magic in reading. Books have taken me to places I never thought I would visit, introduced me to people I never thought I would meet, and transported me to times past and futures imagined I never though I would experience."

"If you just look at the majority of American Jews, they are more like Bernie Sanders than Joe Lieberman, in terms of secular versus Orthodox, or non-nationalistic versus nationalistic, or moral versus corrupt. There are all these articles that keep coming, saying that Bernie Sanders isn’t talking about his Judaism enough, or contrasting him with Joe Lieberman as the American Jewish icon, because — because why? Because Lieberman wears a yarmulke? Because he lends his name to extremist movements, like Christians United for Israel? To me that’s not Judaism, and for the press and even the Jewish community to implicitly assume that these extremes are our norms — that is what is self-loathing, that is when we become self-hating."

"The last straw for me was Joe Lieberman. For years I've been voting for Democrats on the grounds that at least the party is not run by right-wing lunatics, but if you listen to Lieberman's rhetoric, he's a Christian rightist in Jewish drag...Both Gore and Lieberman are pandering to religious and moral conservatives, again ignoring the secularists and social liberals who are the backbone of the party. Neither of them ever met a civil liberty he liked. I am chilled by their demagogic attacks on popular culture."

"[The controversy surrounding Cannibal Corpse's lyrics] got to the point where it entered . That's something I never imagined, and I never heard [Senator] Joe Lieberman actually say these words, but he said this about us: "[Cannibal Corpse] is deplorable. They have a song about having sex with a severed head." I wish I could have heard him say that shit. I'd love that sound bite."

"Tree-hugging, Birkenstock-wearing, hippie, tie-dyed liberals [in Hollywood should]… go make their movies and their music and whine somewhere else…. It's just too damn bad we didn't buy them a ticket [to become human shields in Iraq].""

"Anybody who is against that obviously must be a communist."

"Look at the movie 'Wag the Dog, I think this has all the elements of that movie. Our reaction to the embassy bombings should be based on sound, credible evidence, not a knee-jerk reaction to try to direct public attention away from his personal problems."

"One volcano in Hawaii, one volcano in Indonesia, produces enough gases in the atmosphere, which include those natural elements that are in the Earth's crust, that, uh, kind of make all the, you know, the science that we have about what we produce, moot."

"The war against terrorism will not be finished as long as he [Saddam Hussein] is in power."

"Women and men are divided by gender, made into the sexes as we know them, by the social requirements of heterosexuality, which institutionalizes male sexual dominance and female sexual submission."

"”Perhaps the wrong of rape has proven so difficult to articulate because the unquestionable starting point has been that rape is definable as distinct from intercourse, when for women it is difficult to distinguish them under conditions of male dominance.”"

"Stopped as attribute of a person, sex inequality takes the form of gender; moving as a relation between people, it takes the form of sexuality. Gender emerges as the congealed form of the sexualization of inequaltiy between men and women."

"Politically, I call it rape whenever a woman has sex and feels violated. You might think that's too broad. I'm not talking about sending all of you men to jail for that. I'm talking about attempting to change the nature of the relations between women and men by having women ask ourselves: "Did I feel violated?" To me, part of the culture of sexual inequality that makes women not report rape is that the definition of rape is not based on our sense of our violation."

"Men who are in prison for rape think it's the dumbest thing that ever happened... It isn't just a miscarriage of justice; they were put in jail for something very little different from what most men do most of the time and call it sex. The only difference is they got caught. That view is nonremorseful and not rehabilitative. It may also be true. It seems to me we have here a convergence between the rapist's view of what he has done and the victim's perspective on what was done to her. That is, for both, their ordinary experiences of heterosexual intercourse and the act of rape have something in common. Now this gets us into intense trouble. because that's exactly how judges and juries see it who refuse to convict men accused of rape. A rape victim has to prove that it was not intercourse. She has to show that there was force and she resisted, because if there was sex, consent is inferred. Finders of fact look for "more force than usual during the preliminaries." Rape is defined by distinction from intercourse—not nonviolence, intercourse. They ask, does this even look more like fucking or like rape? But what is their standard for sex, and is this question asked from the woman's point of view? The level of force is not adjudicated at her point of violation; it is adjudicated at the standard of the normal level of force. Who sets this standard?""

"In all these situations, there was not enough violence against them to take it beyond the category of "sex"; they were not coerced enough."

"In my opinion, no feminism worthy of the name is not methodologically post-marxist."

"To be a prisoner means to be defined as a member of a group for whom the rules of what can be done to you, of what is seen as abuse of you, are reduced as part of the definition of your status."

"Show me an abuse of women in society, I'll show it to you made sex in the pornography. If you want to know who is being hurt in this society, go see what is being done and to whom in pornography and then go look for them other places in the world. You will find them being hurt in just that way."

"We are stripped of authority and reduced and devaluated and silenced. Silenced here means that the purposes of the First Amendment, premised upon conditions presumed and promoted by protecting free speech, do not pertain to women because they are not our conditions. Consider them: individual self-fulfillment – how does pornography promote our individual self-fulfillment? How does sexual inequality even permit it? Even if she can form words, who listens to a woman with a penis in her mouth?"

"Compare victims' reports of rape with women's reports of sex. They look a lot alike"

"the major distinction between intercourse (normal) and rape (abnormal) is that the normal happens so often that one cannot get anyone to see anything wrong with it."

"Male sexuality is apparently activated by violence against women and expresses itself in violence against women to a significant extent."

"Women fake vaginal orgasms, the only 'mature' sexuality, because men demand that they enjoy vaginal penetration."

"Nor is homosexuality without stake in this gendered sexual system. Putting to one side the obviously gendered content of expressly adopted roles, clothing, and sexual mimicry, to the extent the gender of a sexual object is crucial to arousal, the structure of social power that stands behind and defines gender is hardly irrelevant, even if it is rearranged."

"Some have argued that lesbian sexuality-meaning here simply women having sex with women not men-solves the problem of gender by eliminating men from women's voluntary sexual encounters. Yet women's sexuality remains constructed under conditions of male supremacy; women remain socially defined as women in relation to men; the definition of women as men's inferiors remains sexual even if not heterosexual, whether men are present at the time or not."

"Women are raped and coerced into sex."

"“Women are socially disadvantaged in controlling sexual access to their bodies through socialization to customs that define a woman's body as for sexual use by men. Sexual access is regularly forced or pressured or routinized beyond denial.”"

"Objectivity is the methodological stance of which objectification is the social process. Sexual objectification is the primary process of the subjection of women. It unites act with word, construction with expression, perception with enforcement, myth with reality. Man fucks woman; subject verb object."

"Imagine that for hundreds of years your most formative traumas, your daily suffering and pain, the abuse you live through, the terror you live with, are unspeakable — not the basis of literature. You grow up with your father holding you down and covering your mouth so another man can make a horrible searing pain between your legs.… You learn how to leave your body and create someone else who takes over when you cannot stand it any more. You develop a self who is ingratiating and obsequious and imitative and aggressively passive and silent — you learn, in a word, femininity."

"Empirically, all pornography is made under conditions of inequality based on sex, overwhelmingly by poor, desperate, homeless, pimped women who were sexually abused as children."

"So the idea that there is nothing essential, in the sense that there are no human universals, is dogma. Ask most anyone who is going to be shot at dawn."

"What postmodernism gives us instead is a multicultural defense for male violence - a defense for it wherever it is, which in effect is a pretty universal defense."

"Can postmodernism hold the perpetrators of genocide accountable?"

"Postmodernism is an academic theory, originating in academia with an academic elite, not in the world of women and men, where feminist theory is rooted."

"All sex, even consensual sex between a married couple, is an act of violence perpetrated against a woman."

"In a patriarchal society all heterosexual intercourse is rape because women, as a group, are not strong enough to give meaningful consent."

"Feminism, Socialism, and Communism are one in [sic] the same, and Socialist/Communist government is the goal of Feminism."

"In the 1980s, Ellen Willis led the so-called pro-sex radical feminists in their heated challenge to the antipornography movement. Countering the arguments of Andrea Dworkin, Catharine MacKinnon, and others that "sexual liberation is a male supremacist plot, Willis proclaimed that sexual liberation was the keystone of broader social and cultural change."

"I find myself again cut off, babbling "buts." I find myself then, also, drawn to Catharine MacKinnon's eloquent "discourses on life and law," in which she argues that viewing gender as a matter of sameness and difference covers up the reality of gender as a system of power, hierarchy, and privilege, of imposed inequality. The point is that more than one thing is true for us at the same time."

"Sometimes I wonder if MacKinnon has simply been driven mad by all the sick things people do to one another. I, too, recoil in pain and incomprehension whenever I hear about the latest psychopath who has shot his mother, machine-gunned his coworkers, raped his daughter, or slashed a prostitute. I notice that such men are more likely to have read the bible than pornography, but I do not hold either script responsible for their actions."

"Sexual speech, not MacKinnon's speech, is the most repressed and disdained kind of expression in our world, and MacKinnon is no rebel or radical to attack it."

"She ends her letter, characteristically, by picturing me and her other critics as indifferent to the suffering of women. But many feminists, including several who wrote or spoke to me about my review, regret her single-minded concentration on lurid sex. They think that though it has predictably attracted much publicity, it tends to stereotype women as victims, and takes attention from still urgent questions of economic, political, and professional equality."

"Perhaps MacKinnon should reflect on these suggestions that the censorship issue is not so simple-minded, so transparently gender-against-gender, as she insists. She should stop calling names long enough to ask whether personal sensationalism, hyperbole, and bad arguments are really what the cause of sexual equality now needs."

"Don’t even get me started on MacKinnon... Now I’d just look at her and shake my head and go, “tsk tsk tsk,” and say, “You know what, I’m really sorry you are that bitter and angry,” cuz that’s what it is. It’s her fuel. It’s what drives her. It’s not that she is not smart, but I do believe she is deluded, and I do believe anger and fear and jealousy and resentment and frustration and out-and-out prudery are what drive her, are her motivating forces... MacKinnon really does feel like she is helping women, while at the same time, she and Dworkin and their ilk silence women. They won’t listen to our stories, our truths."

"In her brilliant study Sexual Harassment of Working Women: A Case of Sex Discrimination, Catharine A. MacKinnon delineates the intersection of compulsory heterosexuality and economics."

"The consequences of the behavior of the BATF in these kinds of cases (events such as Waco) is that they are not trusted. They are detested, and I have described them properly as jackbooted American fascists. They have shown no concern over the rights of ordinary citizens or their property. They intrude without the slightest regard or concern."

"My old daddy used to say "kill the closest snake first"."

"I don't take sides for or against Hezbollah, or for or against Israel."

"Let me remind you this has been going on for years. We are bringing it to a halt. The harsh fact of the matter is when you're going to pass legislation that will cover 300 [million] American people in different ways it takes a long time to do the necessary administrative steps that have to be taken to put the legislation together to control the people."

"The Lovely Deborah is insisting I rest and stay off here, but after long negotiations we've worked out a deal where she'll keep up with Twitter for me as I dictate the messages. I want to thank you all for your incredibly kind words and prayers. You're not done with me just yet."

"Debbie [Dingell] worked for GM. The family made millions from GM while congressman [John] Dingell pushed for five bailouts for GM."

"Those who fell by the wayside. Scenes like this were common all over the Armenian provinces in the spring and summer months of 1915. Death in its several forms—massacre, starvation, exhaustion—destroyed the larger part of the refugees. The Turkish policy was that of extermination under the guise of deportation."

"Soon after Athens had reached the height of its glory under Pericles in the Fifth Century, B. C., and had started on its decline, the rise of Macedon under Philip carried Greek influence into new regions. The glory of Athens had been based upon sea power, but the conquests of Macedon were the work of land armies— Philip invented the invincible phalanx. Upon Philip's death his son, Alexander the Great, set forth to conquer the whole of the then known world, and as that world in his day lay to the east, his marches were in that direction. In a few years he had overrun the fertile plains and opulent cities of Asia Minor, Syria, Mesopotamia, and Persia, and had carried his conquests to the gates of Delhi. In all the cities in the intervening countries he left large garrisons of Greek soldiers. In many of these countries he founded flourishing new cities. In every place his soldiers were followed by large colonies of Greek civilians. The result was that the whole of western Asia, and of what we call the Near East, including Asia Minor, Egypt, Palestine, Syria, Babylonia, Mesopotamia, Persia, and northwestern India, was saturated with the Greek influence and with Greek colonies."

"The imagination of these conquered peoples was dazzled by the introduction of Greek art, literature, philosophy, and public works. Though the successors of Alexander were unable to maintain the political control of the lands he conquered, and though successive waves of Roman, Arabian, and Tartar conquests swept over these lands in succeeding centuries, none of the later conquerors has been able wholly to eradicate the influence of Greek culture, nor to exterminate that element of population which was of Greek blood."

"….The Greek War of Independence, which came to a successful conclusion in 1832, affected less than one half of the Greeks in the Turkish Empire. It did not bring freedom to the Greeks of Macedonia and Thrace, of Crete and the Aegean Islands, nor to the more than two million Greeks in Asia Minor and Constantinople."

"When the Turks and the Bulgarians left, Macedonia remained a purely Greek region."

"To this day, the Turkish government refuses to acknowledge the Armenian genocide. This is strange, since the historical evidence of what happened is plentiful. Western observers like the US ambassador in Constantinople, Henry Morgenthau, wrote detailed reports about what was being done - including the telling statement of Mehmed Talaat Pasha, the Interior Minister, that all the Armenians had to perish because 'those who were innocent today might be guilty tomorrow'. Western missionaries too wrote harrowing accounts of what they witnessed. Their testimony formed an important part of the wartime report on 'The Treatment of the Armenians' compiled by Viscount Bryce, who had also investigated the German atrocities in Belgium in 1914."

"We were about to board the planes for the flight back to the United States. Jim Jones didn't want us to leave, at least not alive. A tractor trailer loaded with men armed with shotguns and rifles pulled up and opened fire on us at that airstrip. Congressman Ryan was gunned down, having been shot 40 times. The first and only congressman in the history of this country to be assassinated during the line of duty. I was shot five times and left to bleed on that airstrip for 22 hours. Back at Jonestown, over 900 people lost their lives in a mass murder and suicide that night. This is what I awoke to on that long day. I was 28 years old, and I was waiting to die. I laid awake all night fearing some of the gunmen would come back and finish us off. Time passed, and local Guyanese people offered me rum to try and get me through the night. I had a lot of time to think. I promised God that if I lived, I would make every day count. I promised that I would make something out of my life if I was allowed to keep my life. Well, here I am. I have chosen a career as a public servant. One, I hope many of you will contemplate as you move forward in your lives."

"Leo Ryan's life and his deeds are about a life that was so much more than Guyana. He was relentless in his search for answers, answers that were not readily available by just asking questions...We remember him today because his story is so much like those of most Americans; we want to believe the best and we sometimes hear the worst."

"I really planned to speak about something else but the gentleman from New Jersey just put my stomach in knots because I'm one of those women he spoke about just now [...] I had a procedure at 17 weeks pregnant with a child who moved from the vagina into the cervix. And that procedure that you just described is a procedure that I endured. I lost the baby [...] And for you to stand on this floor and suggest that somehow this is a procedure that is either welcomed or done cavalierly or done without any thought, is preposterous. [...] Planned Parenthood has a right to operate. Planned Parenthood has a right to provide services for family planning. Planned Parenthood has a right to offer abortions [...] Last time I checked, abortions were legal in this country."

"It's time to be more than a weekend wife and mother and friend and it's time to pass the torch to a new generation."

"Forty-three years ago this week, I was lying on an airstrip in the jungles of Guyana with five bullet holes in my body. I vowed that if I survived, I would dedicate my life to public service. I lived, and I served. It's been a remarkable journey that has surpassed my wildest dreams."

""I know what it’s like to lie in bed at night, wondering if I was the one who had done something wrong. I know what it’s like years later to remember that rush of humiliation and anger."

"There are more chapters in my life book. And I look forward to writing those chapters with the people l know and love"

"Her courageous and values-based leadership, particularly on behalf of the women, survivors and the vulnerable, has made a difference in the lives of countless Americans and has strengthened our nation"

"I had the privilege of closely observing [Speier] in action as her Senate district director and Assembly district aide before that. I was awed by her ability to stand up to powerful interests regardless of potential political consequences"

"You testified this morning, in response to Senator Biden, that the most embarrassing question involved — and this is not too bad — women’s large breasts. That is a word we use all the time."

"There is just no sensible, logical reason why we would not make use of stem cell research."

"We will submit legislation to the United States Senate which will...authorize the Congress to undertake judicial review of those signing statements with the view to having the president’s acts declared unconstitutional."

"There ought to be a million-person march on the Mall... that can be heard in the living quarters of the White House."

"We're all looking for a plan that will work. The current plan is not working, and 21,500 additional troops -- it's a snowball in July. It's not going to work."

"I would suggest respectfully to the president that he is not the sole decider. The decider is a shared and joint responsibility."

"Resolutions are flying like snowflakes around here."

"I didn't want to get into a political debate with him, but my patience was running thin...My shorts were getting a little tight."

"I had a special project to do a campaign for a Philadelphia politician named Arlen Spector [sic]. “When do I get to see Arlen Spector?” I asked. “You don’t.” Spector was a district attorney in Philadelphia, running for mayor. He wanted New York advertising but he had placed through a Philadelphia agency. I complained about not being able to see Arlen Spector. “Are you crazy?” his people said. “Nobody gets to meet Arlen Spector. We can’t even see him.” “All right,” I said, “what’s Arlen Spector for?” “Arlen Spector is for getting elected.” “All right,” I said, “what’s Arlen Spector against?” “Arlen Spector is against losing.” I did the campaign, but Arlen Spector lost."

"U.S. News: You criticize the Miranda ruling, which gives suspects the right to have a lawyer present before police questioning. Shouldn't people, who may be innocent, have such protection? Meese: Suspects who are innocent of a crime should. But the thing is, you don't have many suspects who are innocent of a crime. That's contradictory. If a person is innocent of a crime, then he is not a suspect."

"I was attorney general; my name is Meese. I say, go to college. Don't carry a piece."

"There are two tactical approaches for candidates seeking their party’s nomination in election campaigns. One is to strongly debate the issues and firmly advocate your positions, but to avoid personal attacks on your opponents or needless divisiveness. The other is to vigorously attack your fellow candidates, disparaging them personally and seeking to raise yourself up by dragging them down. Ronald Reagan was famous for epitomizing the former path. Donald Trump, unfortunately, has chosen to follow the latter course... At a time when the nation is suffering under one of the most divisive and incompetent presidents in history, our people need positive, unifying leadership, not negative, destructive political rhetoric."

"I believe that we need to bring a significant number of our troops home. That’s the only that we send a clear message to the government of Iraq that we’re serious about this and that they need to start taking responsibility for their own country.... I am one who does not believe that we can bring all the troops home tomorrow. The situation is too precarious. But I believe we need to start this year, in the very near future, drawing down the troops."

"So what's the cost of the culture of corruption? Of people giving breaks to the oil companies and giving giveaways and Christmas presents to the drug companies and the insurance companies? The cost is $90 billion a year. There you go. Quantifiable."

"Ted Kennedy’s wit and stories, his passion for a cause and his country, and his love for the Senate just made you want to go to work every day. I had the privilege to serve with Ted Kennedy in the Senate for just two years. He was a mentor to so many of us just starting out, not in the traditional "this is how you get it done" way, but instead as an inspiration. He never gave up and had a fiery zest for the legislative battles that was always tempered by a bipartisan pragmatism. He was incredibly strong and effective and had the deep respect of everyone that worked with him."

"At a time when we must heal the heart of our democracy and renew our commitment to the common good, I stand before you as the granddaughter of an iron ore miner, as the daughter of a teacher and a newspaperman, as the first woman elected to the United States Senate from the state of Minnesota, to announce my candidacy for president of the United States."

"I have won every place, every race — every time I've won."

"I see natural gas as a transition fuel. It is better than oil but not nearly as good as wind and solar. I am being honest on what we need to do. We won't immediately get rid of it."

"The whole thing doesn't quite make sense and it's just another example of the President treating foreign policy like its some kind of game show. This isn't a game show, these are terrorists."

"If you feel stuck in the middle of the extremes in our politics, you've got a home with me."

"Well, first, the economy. We know that not everyone is sharing in this prosperity. And Donald Trump just sits in the White House and gloats about what's going on, when you have so many people that are having trouble affording college and having trouble affording their premiums. So I do get concerned about paying for college for rich kids. I do. But I think my plan is a good one. And my plan would be to, first of all, make community college free and make sure that everyone else besides that top percentile gets help with their education. My own dad and my sister got their first degrees with community college. There's many paths to success, as well as certifications. Secondly, I'd used Pell grants. I'd double them from $6,000 to $12,000 a year and expand it to the number of families that get covered, to families that make up to $100,000. And then the third thing I would do is make it easier for students to pay off their student loans. Because I can tell you this: If billionaires can pay off their yachts, students should be able to pay off their student loans."

"Well, I think it's a bold approach. It's something that Barack Obama wanted to do when we were working on the Affordable Care Act. And that is a public option. I am just simply concerned about kicking half of America off of their health insurance in four years, which is exactly what this bill says. So let me go on beyond that. There is a much bigger issue in addition to that, and that is pharmaceuticals. The president literally went on TV, on Fox, and said that people's heads would spin when they see how much he would bring down pharmaceutical prices. Instead, 2,500 drugs have gone up in double-digits since he came into office. Instead, he gave $100 billion in giveaways to the pharma companies. For the rest of us, for the rest of America, that's what we call at home all foam and no beer. We got nothing out of it. And so my proposal is to do something about pharma, to take them on, to allow negotiation under Medicare, to bring in less expensive drugs from other countries. And pharma thinks they own Washington? Well, they don't own me."

"I just want to say, there's three women up here that have fought pretty hard for a woman's right to choose. I'll start with that. And then I just want to make very clear, I think we share the goal of universal health care. And the idea I put out there, the public option, which the governor was just talking about, this idea is that you use Medicare or Medicaid without any insurance companies involved, you can do it either way. And the estimates are 13 million people would see a reduction in their premiums, 12 more million people would get covered. So I think it is a beginning and the way you start and the way you move to universal health care."

"Immigrants, they do not diminish America. They are America. And I am happy to look at his proposal. But I do think you want to make sure that you have provisions in place that allow you to go after traffickers and allow you to go after people who are violating the law. What I really think we need to step back and talk about is the economic imperative here. And that is that 70 of our Fortune 500 companies are headed by people that came from other countries. Twenty-five percent of our U.S. Nobel laureates were born in other countries. We have a situation right now where we need workers in our fields and in our factories. We need them to start small businesses. We need their ideas. And this president has literally gone backwards at a time when our economy needs immigrants. And so my proposal is to look at that 2013 bill that passed the Senate with Republican support, to upgrade that bill, to make it as good as possible and get it done. It brings the debt down by $158 billion."

"TODD: Thank you, Congressman O'Rourke. Hang on. Let me give 30 seconds, Senator Klobuchar, the iron range. I'm curious. Gun confiscation, right? If the government is buying back, how do you not have that conversation?"

"My life and my career and my work in the Senate has been about economic opportunity. And to me, this means better childcare for everyone in this country. And when you want an economy that works, you need to have retirement that works, you need to have public schools that work. And you also need to make sure that those communities are able to get those jobs of the future, the STEM jobs. In fact, Donald Trump, one of the first bills that he signed of the 34 he signed where I was the lead Democrat -- OK, that's a first up here -- was one that was about that, making sure minority community members could share in those jobs. So to me, this is about a few things. It's about an African-American woman that goes to a hospital in New Orleans, says her hands are swollen, and then doctor ignores her and her baby dies. It's about the fact that African-American women make 61 cents for every dollar a white man makes. So in short, we need, one -- and I will do this in my first 100 days as president -- we will work to make sure everyone can vote at this table, everyone can vote in this country and we will also go to the next step of criminal justice reform. Senator Booker and I worked on that First Step Act, but we should go to the second step act, which is to help all our communities across our country."

"If this decision doesn’t cry out for that, I don’t know what does"

"Congestion at ports and increased shipping costs pose unique challenges for U.S. exporters, who have seen the price of shipping containers increase four-fold in just two years. Meanwhile, ocean carriers have reported record profits. This legislation will level the playing field by giving the Federal Maritime Commission greater authority to regulate harmful practices by carriers and set rules on what fees carriers can reasonably charge shippers and transporters. As we work to improve our supply chains, I’ll keep fighting to establish trade opportunities for the U.S."

"For a brief moment last Tuesday after the Democratic presidential debate, past the hallways that snaked from the spin room to the exit near the back of the Gaillard Center in South Carolina, two of the candidates ended up stuck together in a small room, unable to leave. There was a problem with the door — security needed to unlock it — and so they stood together waiting. Had chance put them there with anybody else, it might’ve been a moment of awkward silence. Amy Klobuchar and Bernie Sanders dislike plenty of people, but not each other. The fact of their friendship, based on a little-discussed, yearslong mutual respect, is all at once entirely unexpected and intuitively obvious. As candidates, they shared a stubborn force of will and a fierce distaste for their enemies — both of them salty, but in vastly different ways. As senators, they work together all the time, but in matters of ideology and political sensibility, they agree on very little. He, for example, will hate this article — see: "political gossip," personality-driven media, etc. She already loves it."

"Amy Klobuchar has a joke she'd like you to hear"

"Klobuchar has proven cross-party support that I fear Warren will lose in key electoral states."

"Harris certainly benefits from the fact that few Democratic officeholders come to mind who could defeat her for the Democratic presidential nomination. Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar performed well during her 2020 bid for the Democratic nomination, and New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker has charisma and speaking skills. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg impressed some during his 2020 presidential run, as did Elizabeth Warren, who will turn 75 before the 2024 presidential election. California Gov. Gavin Newsom is an obvious name to consider, as is Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, if she is reelected in November."

"Next time we march we may have to keep going when we get to Montgomery. We may have to on to Washington."

"I thought I was going to die a few times. On the Freedom Ride in the year 1961, when I was beaten at the Greyhound bus station in Montgomery, I thought I was going to die. On March 7th, 1965, when I was hit in the head with a night stick by a State Trooper at the foot of the Edmund Pettus Bridge, I thought I was going to die. I thought I saw death, but nothing can make me question the philosophy of nonviolence."

"I believe in nonviolence as a way of life, as a way of living."

"We may not have chosen the time, but the time has chosen us."

"… Freedom is not a state; it is an act. It is not some enchanted garden perched high on a distant plateau where we can finally sit down and rest. Freedom is the continuous action we all must take, and each generation must do its part to create an even more fair, more just society."

"Our children and their children will ask us what did you do? What did you say? For some this vote may be hard. But we have a mission and a mandate to be on the right side of history."

"I have been in some kind of fight – for freedom, equality, basic human rights – for nearly my entire life. I have never faced a fight quite like the one I have now."

"Our nation is founded on the principle that we do not have kings. We have presidents. And the Constitution is our compass. When you see something that is not right, not just, not fair, you have a moral obligation to say something. To do something. Our children and their children will ask us, ‘What did you do? What did you say?' For some, he concluded, this vote may be hard. But we have a mission and a mandate to be on the right side of history."

"We were beaten, we were tear-gassed. I thought I was going to die on this bridge. But somehow and some way, God almighty helped me here. We cannot give up now. We cannot give in. We must keep the faith, keep our eyes on the prize."

"55 years ago today, we were beaten, tear gassed, and trampled by horses. I thought I saw death. I thought I was going to die. I don't know how I made it back, but I know we cannot rest. We cannot become weary. We must keep pushing and pulling and find a way to get in the way."

"I know your pain, your rage, your sense of despair and hopelessness. Justice has, indeed, been denied for far too long. Rioting, looting, and burning is not the way. Organize. Demonstrate. Sit-in. Stand-up. Vote. Be constructive, not destructive."

"House Democrats are listening to those speaking out for police reform and will pass the George Floyd #JusticeInPolicing Act today. Learn more about the bill..."

"A democracy cannot thrive where power remains unchecked and justice is reserved for a select few. Ignoring these cries and failing to respond to this movement is simply not an option. For peace cannot exist where justice is not served. I urge each and everyone of our colleagues to support this legislation."

"59 years ago today I was released from Parchman Farm Penitentiary after being arrested in Jackson, MS for using a so-called "white" restroom during the Freedom Rides of 1961."

"As many universities plan for online or hybrid learning this fall, this needlessly punitive proposal puts international students at risk of illness or deportation if they continue their education in the United States."

"Do not get lost in a sea of despair. Be hopeful, be optimistic. Our struggle is not the struggle of a day, a week, a month, or a year, it is the struggle of a lifetime. Never, ever be afraid to make some noise and get in good trouble, necessary trouble. — A tweet from June 2018"

"I appeal to all of you to get into this great revolution that is sweeping this nation. Get in and stay in the streets of every city, every village and hamlet of this nation until true freedom comes, until the revolution of 1776 is complete. — At the 1963 March on Washington"

"He’s right... Rep. Lewis reminds us not just of our duty to continue to fight for a better country — his story reminds us of the transformational change we can achieve when we do. As a young Black civil rights leader, Lewis suffered a head injury on Bloody Sunday fighting for the rights of people like me to vote in our elections."

"Civil Rights Movement leaders now in positions of power have also lent assistance to the Environmental Justice Movement. For instance, in 1992, Representative John Lewis of Georgia, a prominent participant in the protests of the 1960s, introduced the Environmental Justice Act. Though the Act did not pass Congress, it raised environmental justice issues to a new stature in Washington. Lewis, in speaking about the bill, recognized that "the quest for environmental justice has helped to renew the civil rights movement" through its call for environmental protection as a "right of all, not a privilege for a few.""

"John Lewis eloquently linked racism at home and militarism abroad when he declared, "President Johnson sent soldiers to Vietnam, but he can't send federal troops to protect us in his own country, in Selma.""

"His commitment to the principles of justice, equality, and the power of nonviolent protest should serve as a North Star as we navigate these difficult days...On the day of his funeral, the New York Times published an essay John Lewis wrote shortly before his death. “Democracy is not a state. It is an act…Ordinary people with extraordinary vision can redeem the soul of America by getting in what I call good trouble, necessary trouble.”"

"Congressman John Lewis, before his passing, wrote: “Democracy is not a state. It is an act.’’ And what he meant was that America’s democracy is not guaranteed. It is only as strong as our willingness to fight for it, to guard it and never take it for granted. And protecting our democracy takes struggle. It takes sacrifice. There is joy in it and there is progress. Because “We The People” have the power to build a better future. And when our very democracy was on the ballot in this election, with the very soul of America at stake, and the world watching, you ushered in a new day for America."

"Farewell, sir. You did, indeed, fight the good fight and get into a lot of good trouble. You served God and humanity well. Thank you. Take your rest."

"Another sign of positive change: one young African-American woman, daughter of two SNCC veterans, announced without hesitation: "I'm a lesbian. That doesn't mean I'm not a Black woman." Rejecting the frequent demand for a single identity, she explained, "I want to deal with sexism and homophobia, not just racism." Perhaps a quarter or a third of the room clapped for her comments, but it is impossible to imagine any such openness 30 years ago. We can also be cheered by the fact that Rep. John Lewis, from Georgia, former SNCC chair, spoke against homophobia-strongly and unasked."

"Considering his enormous impact on the history of this country, what always struck those who met John was his gentleness and humility. Born into modest means in the heart of the Jim Crow South, he understood that he was just one of a long line of heroes in the struggle for racial justice. Early on, he embraced the principles of nonviolent resistance and civil disobedience as the means to bring about real change in this country, understanding that such tactics had the power not only to change laws, but to change hearts and minds as well."

"Rewatching the Freedom Riders documentary, seeing the face of a young John Lewis, and I'm reminded of how so many of the ppl who spit on, cursed at, & assaulted these riders are ppl who are still alive today. Still alive, still voting, still here. None of this was that long ago."

"It is not enough to say he was a revered civil rights icon. He was a man of impeccable integrity who dedicated his life to fighting against racism, discrimination & injustice. John was a true leader who inspired us all to have the courage to fight."

"When John Lewis, a young Alabama-born SNCC leader, much arrested, much beaten, tried to introduce a stronger note of outrage at the meeting, he was censored by the leaders of the march, who insisted he omit certain sentences critical of the national government and urging militant action."

"in one important way these young people are very much like the abolitionists of old: they have a healthy disrespect for respectability; they are not ashamed of being agitators and trouble-makers; they see it as the essence of democracy. In defense of William Lloyd Garrison, against the accusation that he was too harsh, a friend replied that the nation was in a sleep so deep "nothing but a rude and almost ruffian-like shake could rouse her." The same deliberate harshness lies behind the activities of James Forman, John Lewis, Bob Moses (activist), and other leaders of SNCC."

"The House is composed of very good men, not shining, but honest and reasonably well-informed, and in time they will be found to improve, and not to be much inferior in eloquence, science, and dignity, to the British Commons. They are patriotic enough, and I believe there are more stupid (as well as more shining) people in the latter, in proportion."

"I consider biennial elections as a security that the sober, second thought of the people shall be law."

"Madison has inserted in his amendments the increase of representatives, each State having two at least. The rights of conscience, of bearing arms, of changing the government, are declared to be inherent in the people. Freedom of the press too. There is a prodigious great dose for a medicine. But it will stimulate the stomach as little as hasty pudding. It is rather food for physic. An immense mass of sweet and other herbs and roots for diet drink."

"[The framers of the Constitution] “intended our government should be a republic, which differs more widely from a democracy than a democracy from a despotism.”"

"The gentleman puts me in mind of an old hen which persists in setting after her eggs are taken away."

"The known propensity of a democracy is to licentiousness, which the ambitious call, and the ignorant believe to be, liberty."

"Liberty has never yet lasted long in a democracy; nor has it ever ended in any thing better than despotism."

"The rights of conscience, of bearing arms, of changing the government, are declared to be inherent in the people. Freedom of the press, too."

"Why then, if these books for children must be retained, as they will be, should not the bible regain the place it once held as a school book ? Its morals are pure, its examples captivating and noble. The reverence for the sacred book, that is thus early impressed, lasts long; and, probably, if not impressed in infancy, never takes firm hold of the mind."

"It was said by Fisher Ames that “falsehood proceeds from Maine to Georgia, while truth is pulling on his boots”."

"Fisher Ames expressed the popular security more wisely, when he compared a monarchy and a republic, saying, "that a monarchy is a merchantman, which sails well, but will sometimes strike on a rock, and go to the bottom; whilst a republic is a raft, which would never sink, but then your feet are always in water.""

"“But differ greatly in the sequel.” --Fisher Ames, when confronted with the declaration that all men are created equal"

"What we really expect out of the Democrats is for them to treat us as they would like to have been treated."

"If ifs and buts were candy and nuts, it would be Christmas everyday."

"Just because you have a right to do something in America does not mean it is the right thing to do."

"We lost one of one of the great leaders of our lifetime on Monday. She was a true friend of America, and a champion of freedom. We're going to ensure that Margaret Thatcher’s legacy is honored by the United States government in a way commensurate with her enormous achievements."

"I leave with no regrets or burdens. If anything, I leave as I started; just a regular guy humbled by the chance to do a big job."

"Lucifer in the flesh, I have Democrat friends and Republican friends. I get along with almost everyone, but I have never worked with a more miserable son of a bitch in my life."

"When it comes to formulating drug policy, too frequently lawmakers are allowed to simply ignore evidence-and even make up their own. I can't count the number of times I've seen shameless politicians use this strategy to mislead the public about drugs. Take for example, former speaker of the house John Boehner, who opposed marijuana legalization for his entire thirty-year political career. Back in 2011, he wrote a constituent to say "research shows that marijuana use in its raw form is harmful" and that he was "unalterably opposed to the legalization of marijuana." In 2018, following Boehner's 2015 resignation from Congress, he joined the board of Acreage Holdings, a Canadian firm that is the largest multi-state owner of cannabis licenses and assets in the United States. As you might've guessed, Boehner no longer opposes marijuana legalization. Now he's an advocate. Now he believes that laws prohibiting the substance are "way out of step." Boehner is a hypocrite. Don't misunderstand me, I think marijuana should be legalized nationwide. My position is unequivocal. What's more, I have a tremendous amount of respect and admiration for those who are able to change their minds in the presence of new and better evidence. This is called cognitive flexibility, a hallmark of intelligence. Boehner's newfound position, however, was motivated by greed. He doesn't seem to give one fuck about the extensive harms caused by the prohibitory policies he once supported. These policies compromise the health of synthetic cannabinoid users and facilitate racism in law enforcement. "I don't have any regrets at all," Boehner told National Public Radio. Astonishingly, he said, "The whole criminal justice part of this, frankly, it never crossed my mind.""

"This guy has emotional problems."

"Non-criminal sexual harassment on the job is not a problem for the virtuous woman except in the rarest of cases."

"The atomic bomb is a marvelous gift that was given to our country by a wise God."

"ERA means abortion funding, means homosexual privileges, means whatever else."

"The judges' obsession with smut is astounding."

"Minors are an intended audience for the highly profitable sex industry. Impressionable teenagers are easily persuaded to have abortions, and homosexual clubs in high school are designed for the young."

"It is long overdue for parents to realize they have the right and duty to protect our children against the intolerant evolutionists."

"The worst censors are those prohibiting criticism of the theory of evolution in the classroom."

"And the first commandment of feminism is: I am woman; thou shalt not tolerate strange gods who assert that women have capabilities or often choose roles that are different from men's."

"Men should stop treating feminists like ladies, and instead treat them like the men they say they want to be."

"The cornerstone of the political correctness that dominates campus culture is radical feminism."

"When will American men learn how to stand up to the nagging by the intolerant, uncivil feminists whose sport is to humiliate men?"

"Many professors are Marxists or other varieties of radicals who hate America."

"Driver's licenses are a crucial national security issue."

"People think that child-support enforcement benefits children, but it doesn't."

"Every country that has experimented with women in actual combat has abandoned the idea, and the notion that Israel uses women in combat is a feminist myth."

"By getting married, the woman has consented to sex, and I don't think you can call it rape."

"American women are the most fortunate class of people who ever lived on the face of the earth. We can do anything we want to do."

"What I am defending is the real rights of women. A woman should have the right to be in the home as a wife and mother."

"There is a war on men, and [feminists] are very open about it. They don't conceal it; they brag about it. You read all of their material – they're always saying they want to abolish the patriarchy. They said that husbands are not necessary in a marriage, they're not necessary in raising children."

"It's really dangerous for a guy to go to college these days. He's better off if he doesn't talk to any women when he gets there. The feminists are perfectly glad to make false accusations and then claim all men are capable of some dastardly deed like rape."

"Trump is the only hope to defeat the Kingmakers. Because everybody else will fall in line. The Kingmakers have so much money behind them."

"You can truly see that there is some melting going on. When you see it, all of a sudden you say, 'Hey, that issue that we've been talking about off and on over the years, there really is something to it.'"

"I'd never seen anything like that ad. Putting pictures of Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden next to the picture of a man who left three limbs on the battlefield -- it's worse than disgraceful. It's reprehensible."

"Chambliss is a senator today by sole virtue of the fact that in 2002 he attacked incumbent Max Cleland -- who lost both legs and an arm in Vietnam and earned Silver and Bronze stars -- as soft on defense and lacking in patriotism. Where was ol' Saxby during the war? Home, of course, claiming a "football injury." How you get elected reflects your character, and Chambliss should never be allowed to live down the shame of what he did in 2002. Never."

"A troop surge in Baghdad would put more American troops at risk to address a problem that is not a military problem."

"Oil-for-food shows the need for reform. There was fraud, corruption, mismanagement. I come as an advocate of a strong United Nations. If you believe in reform, it’s going to be very hard if the guy leading the charge is stained."

"A speech is entertaining only when serenely detached from all information."

"It is still an open question as to whether mankind or insects shall ultimately inherit the earth. It is my opinion that mankind … has about a 50-50 chance...."

"I suffer from cacoethes loquendi, a mania or itch for talking, and from vanity . . . and morbidity, and, as is obvious to everyone who knows me, an inborn, an inveterate flair for histrionics. … I am pachydermatous. … I am a veritable peripatetic bifurcated volcano on behalf of Democratic principles."

"No man is fit to be a Senator... unless he is willing to surrender his political life for great principle."

"… I shall not waste any time on such miserable twaddle as to say that I ought to have been elected. … It is the undoubted right of the people to change their servants, and to remove one and displace him with another at any time they choose, for a good reason, for a bad reason, or for no reason at all. If we are to remain a free people, it is the duty of public servants not grumpily and sourly to accept the verdict of the majority, but joyously to accept that verdict. . . ."

"There has never been superadded to these vices of mine the withering, embalming vice of consistency."

"I could throw 56-pound words clear across the Grand Canyon. As a matter of course, I went into politics."

"Whoever in his public services is handcuffed and shackled by the vice of consistency will be a man not free to act as various questions come before him from time to time; he will be a statesman locked in a prison house, keys to which are in the keeping of days and events that are dead. Let me quote Emerson: 'A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen.'"

"Poker teaches self-reliance, self-control, self-respect, self-denial, and independence. But when cards are wild or are given fictitious authority, the noble game is robbed of its romance, grace and stimulation and degenerates into a gambling scheme."

"You send me to Washington to represent you in the senate. But you do not send me there because you are interested in grave questions of national or international policy. When I come back to Arizona, you never ask me any questions about such policies; instead you ask me: “What about my pension?” or “What about that job for my son?” I am not in Washington as a statesman. I am there as a very well paid messenger boy doing your errands. My chief occupation is going around with a forked stick picking up little fragments of patronage for my constituents."

"How few of us have made our individual declaration of independence, and until we do that, we are not free."

"We should not be forced to give up our children's U.S citizenship so that we can get a fuller measure of self-government."

"If the American Negro is to have a culture of his own he will have to leave America to get it."

"I found a special eagerness among the younger, and I am sorry to say, the more intelligent Negroes, to dismiss the spiritual as something beneath their new pride in their race. It is as if they wanted to put it behind them as something to be ashamed of..."

"From what I have already seen of the workings of the Soviet Government, I can only say that anybody who lifts his hand against it ought to be shot! It is the government's duty to put down any opposition to this really free society with a firm hand, and I hope they will always do it, for I already regard myself at home here. This is home to me. I feel more kinship to the Russian people under their new society than I ever felt anywhere else. It is obvious that there is no terror here, that all the masses of every race are contented and support their government."

"If the United States and the United Nations truly want peace and security let them fulfill the hopes of the common people everywhere – let them work together to accomplish on a worldwide scale, precisely the kind of democratic association of free people which characterizes the Soviet Union today."

"I am truly happy that I am able to travel from time to time to the USSR — the country I love above all. I always have been, I am now and will always be a loyal friend of the Soviet Union."

"Today in Korea—in Southeast Asia—in Latin America and the West Indies, in the Middle East—in Africa, one sees tens of millions of long oppressed colonial peoples surging toward freedom. What courage—what sacrifice—what determination never to rest until victory!...And arrayed against them, the combined powers of the so-called Free West, headed by the greedy, profit-hungry, war-minded industrialists and financial barons of our America. The illusion of an “American Century” blinds them for the immediate present to the clear fact that civilization has passed them by—that we now live in a people’s century—that the star shines brightly in the East of Europe and of the world. Colonial peoples today look to the Soviet Socialist Republics...One reverently speaks of Marx, Engels, Lenin and Stalin—the shapers of humanity’s richest present and future."

"It was deeply fascinating to watch how strikingly contemporary American audiences from coast to coast found Shakespeare's Othello — painfully immediate in its unfolding of evil, innocence, passion, dignity and nobility, and contemporary in its overtones of a clash of cultures, of the partial acceptance of and consequent effect upon one of a minority group. Against this background, the jealousy of the protagonist becomes more credible, the blows to his pride more understandable, the final collapse of his personal, individual world more inevitable. But beyond the personal tragedy, the terrible agony of Othello, the irretrievability of his world, the complete destruction of all his trusted and sacred values — all these suggest the shattering of a universe."

"In the early days of my carer as an actor, I shared what was then the prevailing attitude of Negro performers — that the content and form of a play or a film scenario was of little importance to us. What mattered was was the opportunity, which came so seldom to our folks … Later I came to understand that the Negro artist could not view the matter simply in terms of his individual interests, and that he had a responsibility to his people who rightfully resented the traditional stereotyped portrayals of Negros on stage and screen."

"For the first time since I began acting, I feel that I've found my place in the world, that there's something out of my own culture which i can express and perhaps help others preserve..i have found out now that the African natives had a definite culture a long way beyond the culture of the Stone age...an integrated thing, which is still unspoiled by western influences...I think the Americans will be amazed to find how many of the modern dance steps are relics of African heritage."

"The artist must elect to fight for freedom or for slavery. I have made my choice. I had no alternative. The history of the capitalist era is characterized by the degradation of my people: despoiled of their lands, their true culture destroyed... denied equal protection of the law, and deprived their rightful place in the respect of their fellows."

"Films make me into some cheap turn...You bet they'll never let me play a part in a film where a Negro is on top."

"One does not need a very long racial memory to loose on oneself in such a part … As I act, civilization falls away from me. My plight becomes real, the horrors terrible facts. I feel the terror of the slave mart, the degradation of man bought and sold into slavery. Well, I am the son of an emancipated slave and the stories of old father are vivid on the tablets of my memory."

"I found it very offensive to my people. It makes the Negro childlike and innocent and is in the old plantation hallelujah shouter tradition... the same old story, the negro singing his way to glory."

"Sometimes great injustices may be inflicted on the minority when the majority is in the pursuit of a great and just cause."

"Could I say that the reason that I am here today, you know, from the mouth of the State Department itself, is: I should not be allowed to travel because I have struggled for years for the independence of the colonial peoples of Africa."

"“I was not prepared for the happiness I see on every face in Moscow,” said Robeson. “I was aware that there was no starvation here, but I was not prepared for the bounding life; the feeling of safety and abundance and freedom that I find here, wherever I turn. I was not prepared for the endless friendliness, which surrounded me from the moment I crossed the border. I had a technically irregular passport, but all this was brushed aside by the eager helpfulness of the border authorities. And this joy and happiness and friendliness, this utter absence of any embarrassment over a ‘race question’ is all the more keenly felt by me because of the day I spent in Berlin on the way here, and that was a day of horror—in an atmosphere of hatred, fear and suspicion.”"

"Commenting on the recent execution after court-martial of a number of counter-revolutionary terrorists, Robeson declared roundly: “From what I have already seen of the workings of the Soviet Government, I can only say that anybody who lifts his hand against it ought to be shot!"

"“It is the government’s duty to put down any opposition to this really free society with a firm hand,” he continued, “and I hope they will always do it, for I already regard myself at home here. This is home to me. I feel more kinship to the Russian people under their new society than I ever felt anywhere else. It is obvious that there is no terror here, that all the masses of every race are contented and support their government.”"

"Pablo Neruda of Chile, one of the world’s greatest poets..Martin Anderson Nexo, the greatest modern Danish humanist...Rev. James Endicott, fearless Canadian minister and fighter for peace..."

"As Americans, preserving the best of our traditions, we have the right—nay the duty—to fight for participation in the forward march of humanity."

"We must join with the tens of millions all over the world who see in peace our most sacred responsibility. Once we are joined together in the fight for peace we will have to talk to each other and tell the truth about each other. How else can peace be won? I have always insisted—and will insist, even more in the future on my right to tell the truth as I know it about the Soviet peoples: of their deep desires and hopes for peace, of their peaceful pursuits of reconstruction from the ravages of war, as in historic Stalingrad; and to tell of the heroic efforts of the friendly peoples in Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Albania, Romania, Bulgaria, great, new China and North Korea—to explain, to answer the endless falsehoods of the warmongering press with clarity and courage."

"In this framework we can make clear what co-existence means. It means living in peace and friendship with another kind of society—a fully integrated society where the people control their destinies, where poverty and illiteracy have been eliminated and where new kinds of human beings develop in the framework of a new level of social living."

"The telling of these truths is an important part of our work in building a strong and broad peace movement in the United States...at home in the United States we found continued and increased persecution, first of leaders of the Communist Party, and then of all honest anti-fascists."

"But the deep desire for peace remained with the American people. Wallace was hailed by vast throngs when he resigned from Truman’s cabinet in protest against the war-mongering of the then Secretary of State James Byrnes, now the Negro-hating governor of South Carolina. We know how Truman betrayed the American people in their hopes for peace, how he betrayed the Negro people in their thirst for equal rights, how he tore up the Bill of Rights and subjected the whole American people to a reign of FBI-terrorization."

"The Korean war has always been an unpopular war among the American people. We remember the unforgivable trickery in the use of the United Nations to further the purposes of “American century” imperialists in that land—quite comparable to the taking of Texas from Mexico, the rape of Cuba, the Philippines, Puerto Rico and Hawaii...today the Negro people watch Africa and Asia and closely follow the liberation struggles of the rising peoples in these lands. We watch the United Nations and see the U.S.A. join with the western imperialist nations to stifle the liberation struggles. We cannot help but see that it is Vishinsky and the spokesman of the Eastern European Peoples Democracies who defend and vote for the interests of the African and Asian peoples. Yes, peace can and must be won, to save the world from the terrible destruction of World War III."

"You want to shut up every Negro who has the courage to stand up and fight for the rights of his people, for the rights of workers, and I have been on many a picket line for the steelworkers too."

"In Russia I felt for the first time like a full human being. No color prejudice like in Mississippi, no color prejudice like in Washington."

"My father was a slave, and my people died to build this country, and I am going to stay here, and have a part of it just like you. And no Fascist-minded people will drive me from it. Is that clear?"

"I am here because I am opposing the Neo-Fascist cause, which I see arising here in these committees."

"Whatever has happened to Stalin, gentlemen, is a question for the Soviet Union.… You are responsible, and your forebears, for 60 million to 100 million black people dying in the slave ships and on the plantations, and don’t ask me about anybody, please."

"You are the non-patriots, and you are the un-Americans, and you ought to be ashamed of yourselves."

"Yes, all Africa remembers that it was Litvinov who stood alone beside Haile Selassie in Geneva, when Mussolini's sons flew with the blessings of the Pope to drop bombs on Ethiopian women and children. Africa remembers that it was the Soviet Union which fought the attempts of the Smuts to annex Southwest Africa to the slave reservation of the Union of South Africa... if the peoples of the Congo refuse to mine the uranium for the atom bombs made in Jim Crow factories in the United States; if all these peoples demand an end to floggings, an end to the farce of 'trusteeship' in the former Italian colonies.... The Soviet Union is the friend of the African and the West Indian peoples."

"Vast quantities of U.S. bombers, tanks and guns have been sent against Ho Chi Minh and his freedom-fighters; and now we are told that soon it will be 'advisable' to send America GI's into Indo-China in order that the tin, rubber and tungsten of Southeast Asia be kept by the "free world"-meaning white Imperialism."

"I met Paul Robeson and Alpheus Hunton. Absolute giants. One could not help but be impressed. Minds were pried open by their keen insight, the manner in which they explained things. One had to join the struggle for the oppressed."

"my first childhood memory of the name Moses came from hearing Paul Robeson singing of him, in the unmistakable deep bass that was his voice alone: "Go down Moses/Way down in Egypt land/Tell ol' Pharaoh/To let my people go""

"Robeson studied several African languages and planned to undertake a thorough study of West African folk song and folklore. As he wrote in a 1934 article in the London Spectator, his goal was to introduce the world to the beauty, power, and dignity of African and African-descended art. "I hope to be able to interpret this original and unpolluted [African] folk song to the Western world and I am convinced that there lies a wealth of uncharted musical material in that source which I hope, one day, will evoke the response in English and American audiences which my Negro spirituals have done." He even understood himself to be "African," both culturally and spiritually, and he saw in black cultural values the foundation for a new vision of a new society, one that could emancipate not only black people but the entire West...Whereas for Claudia Jones the structural position of black people-black women in particular-in the political economy placed them in the vanguard of the revolution, for Paul Robeson it was their culture that gave the black movement its special insight and character...Unfortunately, neither Du Bois nor Robeson nor anyone else with a continuing commitment to the Left had anything to say about Stalin's atrocities-the political assassinations, the gulags, the Soviet state's hidden war against political dissidents and Russian Jews. Although it is not clear who knew what before Khruschev unveiled these crimes to the world in 1956, the silence that followed these revelations is one of the great tragedies in the history of the Communist movement. The other great tragedy, for the black freedom movement in particular, was the silencing of radical leadership. Robeson, Du Bois, and Claudia Jones were among the many victims of statesponsored anticommunist witch hunts."

"Paul Robeson stood/on the northern border/of the USA/and sang into Canada/where a vast audience/sat on folding chairs/waiting to hear him./He sang into Canada./His voice left the USA/when his body was/not allowed to cross that line…"

"“Cross That Line” is an important poem to me because I loved Paul Robeson so much as a child. I loved his voice. We had a record of him singing. And I wouldn’t read his biography till I was an adult, and know about what he suffered as a so-called communist and how his passport was taken away from him and he was not allowed to leave the nation, though he had a huge fan club in Europe and elsewhere. So I thought this was so funny when he did this, and I now own a CD of this concert."

"There is this... that must be admired about Du Bois, Robeson, Ben Davis and others. They are not taking it lying down. Ben Davis is in prison... Robeson has sacrificed... DuBois has fought without let up for over half a century and at 85 be is determined as ever. Some day when truth gets a hearing, America, regardless of colour, we will honour them."

"Downtown they were still mournfully talking about the good, solid white folks who had walked into space from Wall Street's many windows. Uptown we were talking about Paul Robeson, who was singing songs which gripped some inner fibres in us that had been dozing. And he was saying things which widened black eyes and sharpened black ears, things which sounded elusively familiar."

"My first real job was as art editor of the People's Voice. Adam Powell, Charlie Buchanan and Ben Davis published that great sheet and one day Adam called me into his office. "Ollie," he said, "there's someone I want you to meet." A beaming giant of a man left his chair, thumped me on the back with a hand as powerful as John Henry's sledgehammer and boomed, "Feller, I just wanted you to know that those cartoons of yours are great."Of course it was Paul Robeson. I can't remember doing much more than gulping. What can one say to a mountain? But it was the beginning of a treasured friendship."

"Paul Robeson was holding forth on the wizardry of old w:Josh Gibson, w:Satchel Paige and other black ballplayers jimcrowed out of what was euphemistically called the national pastime..."One day," said Paul, "our boys are going to bust right into the Yankee Stadium dugout and teach 'em the fine points of the game.""

"And then there was Robeson and the heart-filling voice singing WHAT IS AMERICA TO ME."

"We helped plow the fields, build the dams, write the poems and sing the music of America. Are not all Americans proud, of Doree Miller, of Frederick Douglass, of Paul Robeson, of Joe Louis, of Marian Anderson."

"Not very long ago I was invited by the satirical Krokodile to see the Soviet Union. In Tashkent I sat on a parkbench where I could drink in the breathtaking oriental beauty of the opera house. I was thinking of coming back the next day with my sketch pad when a little Uzbek girl came to me holding out a flower. Her oval face was so lovely, even with the tooth missing from in front. Of course I couldn't understand what she was saying but Yuri, my interpreter explained, "She asks if you are Paul Robeson?" Her mother appeared and suddenly it seemed there were hundreds of Uzbek children with their mothers, all carrying hastily picked flowers. I was terribly flustered but I managed to explain that I wasn't Paul Robeson but that he was my friend. And then one Uzbek mother, proud of her English said, "Here, he is our beloved Pauli.""

"Today I wish to pay tribute to an astonishing, powerful forefather of all of us, an exemplary Black man, an unparalleled role model who studied, and mastered, twenty-five languages, including Chinese and Arabic, as well as East and West coast African languages. A great human being, an exemplary Black man who graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Rutgers University, a huge hero who twice made All-America in football, and who earned fifteen Varsity letters in six or seven other sports, besides. An exemplary Black man who sang like a God and comported himself like a king."

"I want to remember and to praise his compassion and his defiance and the ever enlarging scope of his moral concern. Today, as the United States insists upon punishing the Arab peoples of Iraq, I want to embrace the lucid, principled commitment of his amazing life. I want to respect and fathom his declaration of himself as African. I want to follow him to the workers of England, whose cause he so passionately espoused. I want to watch him rushing again and again to the side of the miners of Wales. I want to intervene and shield him from the atrocious insults he endured at restaurants, concert halls, hotels, and the actual and the political attempts to lynch him. I want to join his studies of Marx and track his on-site inspection of Soviet efforts at equality for minority peoples. I want to cheer him on as he founded, just one year after I was born, the Council on African Affairs, which, for almost twenty years, was the sole United States organization devoted to assistance of African liberation struggles. I want to enjoy his twenty minutes of standing ovation triumphs onstage as Othello, or as himself, singing Negro Spirituals and Russian and Spanish folksongs. I want to understand and copy his devotion to the eradication of racist everything and his rejection and exposure of economic inequities everywhere. I need to honor his resistance to the stupidity of Harry Truman's Cold War and Joe McCarthy's un-American witch-hunt. I want to cheer as he becomes an honorary member of the C.I.O. and the International Longshoremen's Union. I want to shout when W.E.B. DuBois presents him with the 1952 Stalin Peace Prize."

"I am thrilled to think about the visionary, loving excellence of his life, symbolized by his painstaking fluency in twenty-five languages-a life and a fluency that ignorant, hateful, totally wrong men, here, in America, sought to cancel with one word! And that one word was "communist"!"

"For the sake of our future collective history I ask that we never forget this one great forefather who, regardless of his glory, never forgot to claim our suffering as his own; that son of a slave who never bowed down to tyranny; That compassionate king who went all over the world singing our own best song in solidarity with the best hopes of people everywhere longing for justice and equality and peace."

"Congressman David Dreier: Will the gentlewoman yield? Norton: I will not yield, sir! The District of Columbia has spent two hundred and six years yielding!"

"Where I stand doesn't depend on where I'm standing."

"I often say after eight years in Washington, I longed for the realism and sincerity of Hollywood."

"I'm not above acting like a seal every once in a while and waiting for the next fish, I just don't want to do it all the time."

"The average 20-year-old serving us in Iraq knows more about their country's national security than the average 20-year political veteran serving in the Congress today."

"This country has shed more blood for the freedom of other people than all the other nations in the history of the world combined, and I'm tired of people feeling like they've got to apologize for America."

"Some of our folks went to Washington to drain the swamp and made partnership with the alligators instead."

"I thought Roe v. Wade was wrongly decided. I think this platform originally came out as a response to particularly Roe v. Wade because of that. Before Roe v. Wade, states made those decisions. I think people ought to be free at state and local levels to make decisions that even Fred Thompson disagrees with. That's what freedom is all about. I think Roe v. Wade hopefully one day will be overturned, and we can go back to the pre-Roe v. Wade days."

"We are always just one successful terrorist attack away from a nuclear disaster"

"We can't forget the fact that although at a particular point in time we never found any WMD down there, he clearly had had WMD. He clearly had had the beginnings of a nuclear program."

"When five men were captured in the Watergate offices of the Democratic National Committee early in the morning on Saturday June 17, 1972 I had just completed a three-year stint as an assistant United States Attorney in Nashville. Ironically I had resigned the day before the break-in. I was about to become an unpaid political worker- the middle Tennessee director for the reelection campaign of Sen. Howard Baker. (page 3)"

"I was operating under the theory that, even though Baker had been responsible for my appointment, I was representing all three minority senators-Baker, Edward Gurney of Florida, and Weicker. If differences arose within the minority there was no question about where my loyalty lay and whose directions I would take, but I believed that I should try to respond to the wishes of Weicker and Gurney in every way possible. (page 25)"

"As I reflected further, I convinced myself that Nixon had not had prior knowledge to the break-in, nor of the cover-up that followed. Even if culpability reached dangerously close to the president, I reasoned, surely his top aides would have shielded him from damaging information, not just to protect themselves, but also to allow him to tell the nation, in the best faith, that neither he nor his chief advisors were involved. (page 39)"

"After sleeping late on Sunday, I was back at my desk that afternoon. I had two prime considerations. First, I wanted to be certain that the tapes were not a trap for the committee or that there was a significant bit of missing information that we lacked; experience taught me that matters of this importance do not usually fall into your lap without more complications that are immediately apparent. Second, if our information was legitimate, I wanted to be sure the White House was fully aware of what was to be disclosed so that it could take appropriate action. Legalisms aside, it was inconceivable to me that the White House could withhold the tapes once their existence was made known. I believed it would be in everyone’s interest if the White House realized, before making any public statements, the probable position of both the majority and the minority of the Watergate committee. Even though I had no authority to act for the committee, I decided to call Fred Buzhardt at home. Buzhardt was the only White House staff member with whom I had had any substantial contact. He had been unassuming and straightforward in his dealings with me. He never tried to enlist me in any White House strategy, to suggest that I relay confidential information, or to so any of the things that were probably assumed by many of the so-called sophisticates in Washington. (page 86)"

"In hindsight, I have come to believe the discovery of the tapes may prove to be an historic event in more than one way. At a time when the United States government acknowledges that 2 million conversations were overheard by authorized eavesdroppers in a twelve month period, and at least an equal number were being recorded by private dectecies, suspicious spouses, corporate spies, special agents, and blackmailers; at a time when people like me conduct their lives under the assumption that their telephone lines are tapped; and at a time when devices such as the bug-in-the-martini-olive are proliferating, the disastrous consequences that flowed from Nixon’s fateful decision to record White House conversations may serve to awaken the nation to the threat posed to the little privacy that remains to us. (page 92)"

"Not once did an off-the-record comment return to haunt me. For example, my relationship with Walter Pincus, editor of the New Republic, one of the nation’s most liberal magazines, developed to the point were he understood our conversations went off the record without my having to say so. I never divulged anything of great substance, but many of my comments about personalities and my own prejudices could have been extremely embarrassing had he (or others) betrayed my confidence. (page 236)"

"I looked down on a quilt of clouds, bordered on the horizon by the blood-orange streaks of the setting sun. As the steady hum of the engine drowned out the chatter around me, I realized that I would probably be thinking about the implications of Watergate for the rest of my life. For the country, and for me it had been a significant point in time. (page 263)"

"Teaching Latin to someone like me in high school was somewhat like trying to teach a pig to dance. It's a waste of the teacher's time and it irritates the pig."

"My daddy always said that a man who walks around with a smile on his face all the time can't possibly know what's going on."

"I heard Senator Sam Irvin of Watergate fame say something that stayed with me: 'If you can paint a really good picture of a cow, you don't have to write the word "cow" under it.'"

"Minor surgery is surgery that someone else is having"

"They say that God protects drunks and children. I would add young morons to that list."

""Dumb as hell" - Richard Nixon described Thompson as not able "to interrogate unfriendly witnesses and would be outsmarted by the committee's Democratic counsel." (see: The transcripts of the Nixon tapes published in "Abuse of Power: The New Watergate Tapes".)"

"I believe a message of solidarity, and economic opportunity, and prosperity is going to win out, and that`s what the Democratic Party stands for, and that is where we`re going to have our focus."

"What role does faith play in my life and when do I talk about it? I talk about it when I'm asked about it. That's pretty much my rule. I don't - I believe that faith is important to Americans, but I also believe very firmly in that constitutional amendment which says Congress shall make no law establishing religion or abridging the free exercise thereof. So it's important in American life, I feel that it is absolutely inappropriate to impose my faith on anyone. But when people want to discuss matters of faith, I find myself willing to do that."

"It's almost like the Reichstag fire, kind of reminds me of that. After the Reichstag was burned, they blamed the Communists for it and it put the leader of that country [Hitler] in a position where he could basically have authority to do whatever he wanted. The fact is that I'm not saying [Sept. 11] was a [U.S.] plan, or anything like that because, you know, that's how they put you in the nut-ball box - dismiss you."

"Keith, a fellow outspoken progressive, had been a mentor to me in many ways."

"When a man talks with absolute sincerity and freedom he goes on a voyage of discovery. The whole company has shares in the enterprise."

"Every generation is a secret society and has incommunicable enthusiasms, tastes and interests which are a mystery both to its predecessors and to posterity."

"It is just as impossible to help reform by conciliating prejudice as it is by buying votes. Prejudice is the enemy. Whoever is not for you is against you."

"Everybody in America is soft, and hates conflict. The cure for this, both in politics and social life, is the same—hardihood. Give them raw truth."

"The short lesson that comes out of long experience in political agitation is something like this: all the motive power in all of these movements is the instinct of religious feeling. All the obstruction comes from attempting to rely on anything else. Conciliation is the enemy."

"People who love soft methods and hate iniquity forget this,—that reform consists in taking a bone from a dog. Philosophy will not do it."

"Our goodness comes solely from thinking on goodness; our wickedness from thinking on wickedness. We too are the victims of our own contemplation."

"Good government is the outcome of private virtue."

"A political organization is a transferable commodity. You could not find a better way of killing virtue than by packing it into one of these contraptions which some gang of thieves is sure to find useful."

"I have no prejudice in my heart, but the white race is the superior race and the Negro race an inferior race and the races must be kept separate by law."

"When they return to take over, they desire more than anything else to see the integrity of the social institutions of the South unimpaired. They desire to see white supremacy maintained. Above all things, they do not desire to see the election laws of the South or the powers of the States in defining the qualifications of electors tampered with. Those boys are fighting to maintain the rights of the States. Those boys are fighting to maintain white supremacy and the control of our election machinery."

"This decision reveals an alarming tendency to destroy the sovereignty of the states. Our supreme court is usurping the legislative function, and Congress may yet prove the last citadel of constitutional government."

"Who has won this war? Why should the white soldier, the warrior who has returned home after having achieved the greatest victory in history be penalized for political reasons?"

"The Negro soldier was an utter and dismal failure in combat in Europe. When I make that statement, it is not from prejudice. I am not prejudiced against the Negro."

"In Europe, Negro soldiers are used principally as service troops behind the lines, and I state now, on the authority of many American officers, that they were lazy; that they would not work; that it was a mistake to send them to Europe, and furthermore, that they should be returned from Europe and sent to the Pacific, where there are races of color."

"Negro soldiers would go to farmhouses and holler "Boche! Bache!" as if they were looking for Germans, call the men of the families out into the yards, and hold guns on them while they went in and criminally assaulted the women members of the family."

"Mr. President, how does that compare with what happened during four years under German occupation? During four years while the German army was there, there were two cases of criminal assault, and in each case, the man guilty was apprehended and shot the very day the assault happened, while in the cases of American culprits, files would have to come back to Washington, the opposition of the Organization for the Advancement of Colored People would have to be faced, a fight against the infliction of the penalty would be made by the Communist Party, this group and that group, so that it would take seven or eight months before any sentence was carried out, and by that time the entire effect of the punishment would be lost."

"I state that the conduct of the Negro soldier in Normandy, as well as all over Europe, was disgraceful and that Negro soldiers have disgraced the flag of their country. They constitute roughly one-twelfth of the Ameri-can Army, yet they are guilty of more than half the crime in the Army."

"There will be no FEPC when the soldier gets back home, and I make that statement as one who has visited many of our armies and talked to literally hundreds of American soldiers."

"I repeat that when communism enters a country, it makes the classes class-conscious. It makes races race-conscious, in order to weaken the internal structure of the country and pave the way for communism."

"We are dealing with an inferior people, and yet we are discriminating against the white soldier, in favor of the inferior person, and under this measure, we are giving the inferior person a preference in securing employment."

"After Liberia was founded the white man ruled it for a period of 25 to 30 years. It was doing well under white control. But 80 years after the white man withdrew, as the League of Nations found, it had not become even semi-civilized. Yet, Mr. President, we talk about racial equality. I assert that the Negro race is an inferior race. The doctrine of white supremacy is one which, if adhered to, will save America."

"Let me say frankly that in my judgment the CIO and the PAC are Communist organizations. I know that there are millions of good loyal Americans who belong to the CIO; but in my judgment, the leadership of that organization is definitely Communistic."

"The people of the South are expected to remain docile while their civilization and culture are destroyed, while their segregation statutes are repealed by Federal action, and while the white race is destroyed under the false guise of another civil-rights bill. We are expected to remain docile while the pure blood of the South is mongrelized by the barter of our heritage by northern politicians in order to secure political favors from Red mongrels in the slums of the cities of the East and West."

"This much is certain. If the present Democratic leadership is right, then Calhoun and Jefferson Davis were wrong. If the present Democratic leadership is right, then Thaddeus Stevens and Charles Sumner were right, and Lee, Forrest, and Wade Hampton were wrong. If the President’s civil-rights program is right, then reconstruction was right. If this program is right, the carpetbaggers were right."

"Organized mongrel minorities control the government. I am going to fight it to the last ditch. They are not going to Harlemize the country."

"The Senator from New Hampshire certainly does not believe that the Governor of New York would clean Communists out of the Government service, when New York, for all practical purposes, is a Communist State."

"The southern institution of racial segregation or racial separation was the correct, self-evident truth which arose from the chaos and confusion of the reconstruction period. Separation promotes racial harmony. It permits each race to follow its own pursuits, and its own civilization. Segregation is not discrimination. Segregation is not a badge of racial inferiority, and that it is not is recognized by both races in the Southern States. In fact, segregation is desired and supported by the vast majority of the members of both races in the South, who dwell side by side under harmonious conditions. ... Let me make this clear, Mr. President: There is no racial hatred in the South. The Negro race is not an oppressed race. ... Mr. President, it is the law of nature, it is the law of God, that every race has both the right and the duty to perpetuate itself. All free men have the right to associate exclusively with members of their own race, free from governmental interference, if they so desire. Free men have the right to send their children to schools of their own choosing, free from governmental interference and to build up their own culture, free from governmental interference. These rights are inherent in the Constitution of the United States and in the American system of government, both state and national, to promote and protect this right."

"That is a very strong statement, Mr. President: “All is race; there is no other truth.” These are known to have been Disraeli's views. Disraeli would have been horrified at a program designed to mongrelize the Anglo-Saxon race which he so greatly admired."

"The white people of the South do not have race prejudice. They have race consciousness, and they are proud to possess this awareness of the significance of race. Had they not possessed it, the South would have been mongrelized and southern civilization destroyed long ago."

"On May 17, 1954, the Constitution of the United States was destroyed because of the Supreme Court’s decision. You are not obliged to obey the decisions of any court which are plainly fraudulent sociological considerations."

"Today, however, a trend away from traditional standards of propriety begins to be in evidence. Our Court has been indoctrinated and brainwashed by left-wing pressure groups. The Court is out of step with the American people. We see Justices of the Supreme Court banqueted and honored by left-wing Communist-front organizations militantly interested in legislation on which the Supreme Court must pass."

"The Anglo-Saxon people have held steadfast to the belief that resistance to tyranny is obedience to God."

"I am sure you are not going to permit the NAACP to control your state."

"As I said, we have more Nigra professional men, more businessmen, we have substantial Nigra cotton planters. In fact, they have made more progress in the south than in the north. The master-servant relationship today is largely a northern product."

"I don’t like you — or your kind."

"Johnson: Jim, we've got three kids missing down there. What can I do about it? Eastland: Well, I don't know. I don't believe there's ... I don't believe there's three missing. Johnson: We've got their parents down here. Eastland: I believe it's a publicity stunt ..."

"I would not be surprised if Martin Luther King and these agitators next desecrate the graves of Confederate soldiers and drag their remains through the streets in an effort to garner headlines. And what kind of person is participating in this march? Beatniks, frauds, and persons wanted to answer for crimes in other States."

"You've inserted the thin end of the wedge by allowing stinking niggers into such a fine hotel."

"Rhodesia has an ingredient which is sadly lacking in America. This is racial harmony."

"In every stage of the [Montgomery] bus boycott we have been oppressed and degraded because of black, slimy, juicy, unbearably stinking niggers. … African flesh-eaters. When in the course of human events it becomes necessary to abolish the Negro race, proper methods should be used. Among these are guns, bows and arrows, slingshots and knives. … All whites are created equal with certain rights, among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of dead niggers."

"Our faith is strong that long after Senator Eastland and his present subcommittee are gone, long after segregation has lost its final battle in the South, long after all that was known as McCarthyism is a dim, unwelcome memory, long after the last Congressional committee has learned that it cannot tamper successfully with a free press, The New York Times will be speaking for (those) who make it, and only for (those) who make it, and speaking, without fear or favor, the truth as it sees it."

"The Senator from Mississippi has said on the floor of the Senate: We will protect and maintain white supremacy throughout eternity. He has said on the floor of the Senate: The Negro race is an inferior race. He has said on the floor of the Senate: Let me say frankly that in my Judgment the CIO and the PAC are Communist organizations. He has said on the floor of the Senate: New York, for all practical purposes, is a Communist state. He has said on the floor of the Senate that the Supreme Court has become indoctrinated and brain-washed by left-wing pressure groups."

"He has associated himself in a leadership role with the so-called White Citizens Councils whose purpose is to organize defiance to the Constitution of the U. S., as interpreted by the Supreme Court, and which have engaged in activities which I consider to be wholly un-American and dangerous to American democracy. I believe that Senator Eastland is a symbol of racism in America. I believe that Senator Eastland is a symbol of defiance to the Constitution of the U. S. as interpreted by the Supreme Court. I believe that Senator Eastland is precluded by philosophy, conviction and activities from presiding over the Senate Judiciary Committee as chairman in an impartial way, and from discharging the agency of the Senate in that regard."

"Senator James Bigot — pardon, Eastland."

"The whole political structure in Washington is partly designed to protect the Southern oligarchy. And Bobby Kennedy's much more interested in politics than he is in any of these things, and so for that matter, is his brother. And furthermore, even if Bobby Kennedy were a different person, or his brother, they are also ignorant, as most white Americans are, of what the problem really is, of how Negroes really live. The speech Kennedy made to Mississippi the night Meredith was carried there was one of the most shameful performances in our history. Because he talked to Mississippi as if there were no Negroes there. And this had a terrible, demoralizing, disaffecting effect on all Negroes everywhere. One is weary of being told that desegregation is legal. One would like to hear for a change that it is right! Now, how one begins to use this power we were talking about earlier is a very grave question, because first of all you have to get Eastland out of Congress and get rid of the power that he wields there. You've got to get rid of J. Edgar Hoover and the power that he wields. If one could get rid of just those two men, or modify their power, there would be a great deal more hope. How in the world are you going to get Mississippi Negroes to go to the polls if you remember that most of them are extremely poor, most of them almost illiterate, and that they live under the most intolerable conditions? They are used to it, which is worse, and they have no sense that they can do anything for themselves. If six Negroes go to the polls and get beaten half to death, and one or two die, and nothing happens from Washington, how are you going to manage even to get the ballot?"

"Jim Eastland could be standing right in the middle of the worst Mississippi flood ever known, and he'd say the niggers caused it, helped out by the Communists -— but, he'd say, we gotta have help from Washington."

"For a quarter of a century, in the Congress of the United States, we tried to get passed an anti-lynching bill. A simple law to protect the lives of black citizens below the Mason-Dixon line. This was not legislation, as our protesting brethren so often take us to task for—the legislation of brotherly love with they say is impossible. It was a law making it a federal offense to hang a human being from a tree, cover him with kerosene and cremate him. But the loudest cheerleaders of our current law and order rallies—the Eastlands and the Strom Thurmonds—were the very gentlemen who fought against that legislation until it was ultimately passed."

"Your chances of getting support in the black community are poor at best. You have a master-servant philosophy with regard to blacks."

"One of most important things I discovered was how the 1965 Voting Rights Act became law. The 1964 Civil Rights Acts contained a voting provision, but in Mississippi there weren't 10 (black) people registered. So Lyndon Johnson called Sen. James Eastland to his office. Eastland was the head of Judiciary Committee. Since Johnson had left the Senate, Eastland was the most powerful single person in Congress. Exactly. They didn't just start recording with Nixon. (Laughs.) When LBJ had Eastland in his office, he recorded the conversation. He told Eastland: "I'm gonna give the blacks the vote—though he didn't say "blacks." "You the only one that can give me any trouble. I'm gonna give them the vote. Jim, all you got to do is you take that vote under your wing." And Jim went along with it. They didn't even have a committee for (the 1965 legislation). It went right through. ... Jim Eastland at the time was the most hated white man in Mississippi (by blacks); he eclipsed Bilbo and Vardaman. Two months later, he was the most beloved white man in Mississippi by blacks. The other thing that Lyndon told him was that if you take that "black" vote under your wing, we will not only control Mississippi, we will control the whole South for the next 50 years and most states, every big city in America. It was a plan, and it worked perfectly according to the plan. It's the main reason blacks loved him so much. Of course, that's been happening through-out history. ... Democracy has some good points, but it ain't hardly what most Americans think it is."

"I was in a caucus with James O. Eastland. He never called me 'boy,' he always called me 'son.'"

"You don't joke about calling black men 'boys.' Men like James O. Eastland used words like that, and the racist policies that accompanied them, to perpetuate white supremacy and strip black Americans of our very humanity."

"Of course, I believe I have an unfair edge over most of my colleagues right now. My mind works faster than my mouth does. Washington would probably be a better place if more people took a moment to think before they spoke."

"The Amendment nullifies sophisticated as well as simple-minded modes of discrimination."

"In this Court dissents have gradually become majority opinions."

"The ultimate touchstone of constitutionality is the Constitution itself and not what we have said about it."

"To be effective, judicial administration must not be leaden-footed."

"It would be a narrow conception of jurisprudence to confine the notion of 'laws' to what is found written on the statute books, and to disregard the gloss which life has written upon it."

"National unity is the basis of national security. To deny the legislature the right to select appropriate means for its attainment presents a totally different order of problem from that of the propriety of subordinating the possible ugliness of littered streets to the free expression opinion through handbills."

"It must never be forgotten, however, that the Bill of Rights was the child of the Enlightenment. Back of the guarantee of free speech lay faith in the power of an appeal to reason by all the peaceful means for gaining access to the mind. It was in order to avert force and explosions due to restrictions upon rational modes of communication that the guarantee of free speech was given a generous scope. But utterance in a context of violence can lose its significance as an appeal to reason and become part of an instrument of force. Such utterance was not meant to be sheltered by the Constitution."

"Of compelling consideration is the fact that words acquire scope and function from the history of events which they summarize."

"Litigation is the pursuit of practical ends, not a game of chess."

"The line must follow some direction of policy, whether rooted in logic or experience. Lines should not be drawn simply for the sake of drawing lines."

"No court can make time stand still."

"A phrase begins life as a literary expression; its felicity leads to its lazy repetition; and repetition soon establishes it as a legal formula, undiscriminatingly used to express different and sometimes contradictory ideas."

"The history of liberty has largely been the history of the observance of procedural safeguards. And the effective administration of criminal justice hardly requires disregard of fair procedures imposed by law."

"One who belongs to the most vilified and persecuted minority in history is not likely to be insensible to the freedoms guaranteed by our Constitution... But as judges we are neither Jew nor Gentile, neither Catholic nor agnostic."

"Is that which was deemed to be of so fundamental a nature as to be written into the Constitution to endure for all times to be the sport of shifting winds of doctrine?"

"After all, advocates, including advocates for States, are like managers of pugilistic and election contestants, in that they have a propensity for claiming everything."

"In any event, mere speed is not a test of justice. Deliberate speed is. Deliberate speed takes time. But it is time well spent."

"A free press is vital to a democratic society because its freedom gives it power. Power in a democracy implies responsibility in its exercise. No institution in a democracy, either governmental or private, can have absolute power. Nor can the limits of power which enforce responsibility be finally determined by the limited power itself. See Carl L. Becker, Freedom and Responsibility in the American Way of Life (1945). In plain English, freedom carries with it responsibility even for the press; freedom of the press is not a freedom from responsibility for its exercise. Most State constitutions expressly provide for liability for abuse of the press' freedom. That there was such legal liability was so taken for granted by the framers of the First Amendment that it was not spelled out. Responsibility for its abuse was imbedded in the law. The First Amendment safeguarded the right. [...] The press does have the right, which is its professional function, to criticize and to advocate. The whole gamut of public affairs is the domain for fearless and critical comment, and not least the administration of justice. But the public function which belongs to the press makes it an obligation of honor to exercise this function only with the fullest sense of responsibility. Without such a lively sense of responsibility, a free press may readily become a powerful instrument of injustice."

"The course of decision in this Court has thus far jealously enforced the principle of a free society secured by the prohibition of unreasonable searches and seizures. Its safeguards are not to be worn away by a process of devitalizing interpretation."

"It is not only under Nazi rule that police excesses are inimical to freedom. It is easy to make light of insistence on scrupulous regard for the safeguards of civil liberties when invoked on behalf of the unworthy. It is too easy. History bears testimony that by such disregard are the rights of liberty extinguished, heedlessly at first, then stealthily, and brazenly in the end."

"If one man can be allowed to determine for himself what is law, every man can. That means first chaos, then tyranny. Legal process is an essential part of the democratic process."

"In law also the emphasis makes the song."

"The Procrustean bed is not a symbol of equality. It is no less inequality to have equality among unequals."

"It has not been unknown that judges persist in error to avoid giving the appearance of weakness and vacillation."

"Decisions of this Court do not have equal intrinsic authority."

"If one starts with the assumption that, in the absence of specific Congressional authority, a fixed rule of law precludes contracting officers from providing in a Government contract terms reasonably calculated to assure its performance even though there be no money loss through a particular default, there is no problem. But answers are not obtained by putting the wrong question and thereby begging the real one."

"If nowhere else, in the relation between Church and State, "good fences make good neighbors.""

"After all, this is the Nation's ultimate judicial tribunal, nor a super-legal-aid bureau."

"The indispensable judicial requisite is intellectual humility."

"A court which yields to the popular will thereby licenses itself to practice despotism, for there can be no assurance that it will not on another occasion indulge its own will."

"Wisdom too often never comes, and so one ought not to reject it merely because it comes late."

"Ambiguity lurks in generality and may thus become an instrument of severity."

"There is torture of mind as well as body; the will is as much affected by fear as by force. And there comes a point where this Court should not be ignorant as judges of what we know as men."

"It is a fair summary of history to say that the safeguards of liberty have frequently been forged in controversies involving not very nice people."

"It is a wise man who said that there is no greater inequality than the equal treatment of unequals."

"The mark of a truly civilized man is confidence in the strength and security derived from the inquiring mind."

"[It is anomalous] to hold that in order to convict a man the police cannot extract by force what is in his mind, but can extract what is in his stomach."

"The process of education has naturally enough been the basis of hope for the perdurance of our democracy on the part of all our great leaders, from Thomas Jefferson onwards. To regard teachers—in our entire educational system, from the primary grades to the university—as the priests of our democracy is therefore not to indulge in hyperbole. It is the special task of teachers to foster those habits of open-mindedness and critical inquiry which alone make for responsible citizens, who, in turn, make possible an enlightened and effective public opinion. Teachers must fulfill their function by precept and practice, by the very atmosphere which they generate; they must be exemplars of open-mindedness and free inquiry. They cannot carry out their noble task if the conditions for the practice of a responsible and critical mind are denied to them."

"The most constructive way of resolving conflicts is to avoid them."

"A license cannot be revoked because a man is redheaded or because he was divorced, except for a calling, if such there be, for which redheadedness or an unbroken marriage may have some rational bearing. If a State licensing agency lays bare its arbitrary action, or if the State law explicitly allows it to act arbitrarily, that is precisely the kind of State action which the Due Process Clause forbids."

"Without a free press there can be no free society. That is axiomatic. However, freedom of the press is not an end in itself but a means to the end of a free society. The scope and nature of the constitutional guarantee of the freedom of the press are to be viewed and applied in that light."

"While it is not always profitable to analogize "fact" to "fiction," La Fontaine's fable of the crow, the cheese, and the fox demonstrates that there is a substantial difference between holding a piece of cheese in the beak and putting it in the stomach."

"Lincoln's appeal to "the better angels of our nature" failed to avert a fratricidal war. But the compassionate wisdom of Lincoln's first and second inaugurals bequeathed to the Union, cemented with blood, a moral heritage which, when drawn upon in times of stress and strife, is sure to find specific ways and means to surmount difficulties that may appear to be insurmountable."

"Time and experience have forcefully taught that the power to inspect dwelling places, either as a matter of systematic area-by-area search or, as here, to treat a specific problem, is of indispensable importance in the maintenance of community health; a power that would be greatly hobbled by the blanket requirement of the safeguards necessary for a search of evidence of criminal acts."

"Congress is, after all, not a body of laymen unfamiliar with the commonplaces of our law. This legislation was the formulation of the two Judiciary Committees, all of whom are lawyers, and the Congress is predominately a lawyers' body."

"Convictions following the admission into evidence of confessions which are involuntary, i.e., the product of coercion, either physical or psychological, cannot stand. This is so not because such confessions are unlikely to be true but because the methods used to extract them offend an underlying principle in the enforcement of our criminal law: that ours is an accusatorial and not an inquisitorial system — a system in which the State must establish guilt by evidence independently and freely secured and may not by coercion prove its charges against an accused out of his own mouth."

"In a democratic society like ours, relief must come through an aroused popular conscience that sears the conscience of the people's representatives."

"Appeal must be to an informed, civically militant electorate."

"The eternal struggle in the law between constancy and change is largely a struggle between history and reason, between past reason and present needs."

"In the first place, lawyers better remember they are human beings, and a human being who hasn't his periods of doubts and distresses and disappointments must be a cabbage, not a human being. That is number one."

"Gratitude is one of the least articulate of the emotions, especially when it is deep. I can express with very limited adequacy the passionate devotion to this land that possesses millions of our people, born, like myself, under other skies, for the privilege that that this county has bestowed in allowing them to partake of its fellowship."

"No judge writes on a wholly clean slate."

"It is true of opinions as of other compositions that those who are seeped in them, whose ears are sensitive to literary nuances, whose antennae record subtle silences, can gather from their contents meaning beyond the words. All this presupposes, of course, a grasp of the nature of the Supreme Court's functions — the scope and limits of its constitutional authority — and often, as well, familiarity with the record and briefs of a particular case whose opinion record and briefs of a particular case whose opinion is under scrutiny."

"The words of the Constitution … are so unrestricted by their intrinsic meaning or by their history or by tradition or by prior decisions that they leave the individual Justice free, if indeed they do not compel him, to gather meaning not from reading the Constitution but from reading life."

"What becomes decisive to a Justice's functioning on the Court in the large area within which his individuality moves is his general attitude toward law, the habits of the mind that he has formed or is capable of unforming, his capacity for detachment, his temperament or training for putting his passion behind his judgment instead of in front of it. The attitudes and qualities which I am groping to characterize are ingredients of what compendiously might be called dominating humility."

"One is entitled to say without qualification that the correlation between prior judicial experience and fitness for the Supreme Court is zero."

"The mode by which the inevitable is reached is effort."

"I came into the world a Jew, and although I did not live my life entirely as a Jew, I think it is fitting that I should leave as a Jew. I don’t want to … turn my back on a great and noble heritage."

"All our work, our whole life is a matter of semantics, because words are the tools with which we work, the material out of which laws are made, out of which the Constitution was written. Everything depends on our understanding of them."

"As a member of this court I am not justified in writing my private notions of policy into the Constitution, no matter how deeply I may cherish them or how mischievous I may deem their disregard."

"For the highest exercise of judicial duty is to subordinate one's personal pulls and one's private views to the law of which we are all guaradians - those impersonal convictions that made a society a civilized community, and not the victims of personal rule."

"Judicial judgment must take deep account...of the day before yesterday in order that yesterday may not paralyze today."

"I know of no title that I deem more honorable than that of Professor of the Harvard Law School."

"Morals are three-quarters manners."

"Holmes said Emerson had a beautiful voice, and, of course, Holmes had one of the most beautiful voices the Lord ever put into a throat."

"Emerson said to him, "Young man, have you read Plato?" Holmes said he hadn't. "You must. You must read Plato. But you must hold him at arm's length and say, 'Plato, you have delighted and edified mankind for two thousand years. What have you to say to me?'" Holmes said, "That's the lesson of independence." So off he went and read Plato for a few moths or a year, and then wrote a piece doing in Mr. Plato in one of those ephemeral literary things at Harvard. He laid this, as it were, at the feet of Mr. Emerson and awaited the next morning's mail, hoping to get a warm appreciation from Emerson. And the next day and the next and the next — no sign of life. No acknowledgment from Mr. Emerson. Holmes didn't see him again for about a year. When he saw him, this, that, and the other thing was again talked about. Emerson said, "Oh, by the way, I read your piece on Plato. Holmes, when you strike at a king, you must kill him." Holmes said, "That was the second great lesson — humility.""

"I do take law very seriously, deeply seriously, because fragile as reason is and limited as law is as the institutionalized medium of reason, that's all we have standing between us and the tyranny of mere will and the cruelty of unbridled, undisciplined feeling."

"Among many other things, 9/11 was a failure of human understanding. It was a mean and nasty and bitter attack on the United States. But it was also about the failure of human beings to understand each other and to learn to love each other. It seems to me that lesson at that morning is something that we must carry with us every day."

"It's obviously a tremendous loss for the state .... I think Livingston's stepping down makes a very powerful argument that Clinton should resign as well and move beyond this mess.""

"This was a very serious sin in my past for which I am, of course, completely responsible. Several years ago, I asked for and received forgiveness from God and my wife in confession and marriage counseling. Out of respect for my family, I will keep my discussion of the matter there - with God and them. But I certainly offer my deep and sincere apologies to all I have disappointed and let down in any way.""

"The performance of business leaders during the next decade will play a major role in determining not only business but political and social trends for a long time to come. Here are some of the principal reasons: - Business leaders control the economic well-being of and stockholder. - The course of business shapes public opinion. - Business leaders shape public opinion. So, in addition to his or her prime responsibility of managing his or her enterprise at a profit, the business leader of today is faced with new and larger responsibilities. And, at the same time, the job of managing his or her enterprise at a profit is increasing in complexity. Consequently, the imposition of additional responsibilities makes the nation’s task of developing an adequate number of properly equipped executive leaders a staggering one indeed."

"I believe that leaders and leadership teams working together in a proper design will run the business more effectively than by hierarchical, command-and-control managing. But I can't prove that. And there are no models."

"People should be judged on the basis of their performance, not nationality, personality, education, or personal traits and skills."

"Decisions should be based on facts, objectively considered — what I call the fact-founded, thought-through approach to decision making."

"A business of high principle generates greater drive and effectiveness because people know that they can do the right thing decisively and with confidence."

"A business of high principle attracts high-caliber people more easily, thereby gaining a basic competitive and profit edge."

"Fourteen basic and well-known managing processes make up the components from which a management system for any business can be fashioned."

"The business with high ethical standards has three primary advantages over competitors whose standards are lower:"

"In large-scale organizations, the factual approach must be constantly nurtured by high-level executives. The more layers of authority through which facts must pass before they reach the decision maker, the greater the danger that they will be suppressed, modified, or softened, so as not to displease the "brass". For this reason, high-level executives must keep reaching for facts or soon they won't know what is going on. Unless they make visible efforts to seek and act on facts, major problems will not be brought to their attention, the quality of their decisions will decline, and the business will gradually get out of touch with its environment."

"The difference between a leadership and a command company can be very great indeed, because in a hierarchical situation, people who have concerns about reactions against themselves would simply not put forward negative information."

"I believe that in a leadership company most people will like their work. But the company will be an even more enjoyable place to work if the culture is designed to make it that way. Leading fosters a working atmosphere that stimulates an open exchange of ideas and fosters dissent. People should show a genuine concern for one another and treat one another with fairness, as peers and friends. With such an atmosphere it should be a pleasure to come to work."

"... for all the reasons we have discussed in these pages, judgments brought to the board by leaders are likely to be better than those coming to the board in a command company. Moreover, the effective working relationships between leaders and directors in a leadership company further ensures the exercise of sound judgments for such momentous decisions ..."

"Marvin Bower, Rhode Island Alpha '25, was honored by Fortune Magazine this year when he was elected to the National Business Hall of Fame. He is considered the "father of modern management consulting."

"Marvin Bower was a great leader and a great teacher. He did not believe leadership could be taught, but he did believe it could be learned. I had the opportunity to observe his deep personal influence on legions of business people and colleagues one by one. For that was his way. One by one."

"The color of the prisoner’s skin, and the form of his features, are not impressed upon the spiritual immortal mind which works beneath. In spite of human pride, he is still your brother, and mine, in form and color accepted and approved by his Father, and yours, and mine, and bears equally with us the proudest inheritance of our race — the image of our Maker. Hold him then to be a Man."

"He is the most gentle-looking and amiable of men. Every word and look indicate sincerity of heart, even to guilelessness."

"It is true, indeed, that the national domain is ours. It is true that it was acquired by the valor and with the wealth of the whole nation. But we hold no arbitrary authority over it. We hold no arbitrary authority over anything, whether lawfully acquired or seized by usurpation. The constitution regulates our stewardship; the constitution devotes the domain to union, to justice, to defense, to welfare and to liberty. But there is a higher law than the Constitution, which regulates our authority over the domain, and devotes it to the same noble purposes."

"Whatever policy we adopt, there must be an energetic prosecution of it. For this purpose it must be somebody's business to pursue and direct it incessantly."

"Remember always that the cause of the United States is the cause of human nature."

"Love one another."

"There is no social life outside of Christendom."

"Douglas, no man will ever be President of the United States who spells 'negro' with two gs."

"The nation thus situated, and enjoying forest, mineral, and agricultural resources unequalled, if endowed also with moral energies adequate to the achievement of great enterprises, and favored with a Government adapted to their character and condition, must command the empire of the seas, which alone is real empire."

"Who does not see, then, that every year hereafter, European commerce, European politics, European thoughts, and European activity, although actually gaining greater force and European connections, although actually becoming more intimate will nevertheless relatively sink in importance; while the Pacific Ocean, its shores, its islands, and the vast regions beyond, will become the chief theatre of events in the World's great Hereafter? Who does not see that this movement must effect our own complete emancipation from what remains of European influence and prejudice, and in turn develop the American opinion and influence which shall remould constitutions, laws, and customs, in the land that is first greeted by the rising sun?"

"I have learned, by some experience, that virtue and patriotism, vice and selfishness, are found in all parties, and that they differ less in their motives than in the policies they pursue."

"As a general truth, communities prosper and flourish, or droop and decline, in just the degree that they practise or neglect to practise the primary duties of justice and humanity. The free-labor system conforms to the divine law of equality, which is written in the hearts and consciences of man, and therefore is always and everywhere beneficent. The slave system is one of constant danger, distrust, suspicion, and watchfulness. It debases those whose toil alone can produce wealth and resources for defence, to the lowest degree of which human nature is capable, to guard against mutiny and insurrection, and thus wastes energies which otherwise might be employed in national development and aggrandizement. The free-labor system educates all alike, and by opening all the fields of industrial employment and all the departments of authority, to the unchecked and equal rivalry of all classes of men, at once secures universal contentment, and brings into the highest possible activity all the physical, moral, and social energies of the whole state."

"The Union is a confederation of States. But in another aspect the United States constitute only one nation. Increase of population, which is filling the States out to their very borders, together with a new and extended network of railroads and other avenues, and an internal commerce which daily becomes more intimate, is rapidly bringing the States into a higher and more perfect social unity or consolidation. Thus, these antagonistic systems are continually coming into closer contact, and collision results. Shall I tell you what this collision means? They who think that it is accidental, unnecessary, the work of interested or fanatical agitators, and therefore ephemeral, mistake the case altogether. It is an irrepressible conflict between opposing and enduring forces, and it means that the United States must and will, sooner or later, become either entirely a slaveholding nation, or entirely a free-labor nation."

"The Democratic Party is inextricably committed to the designs of the slaveholders."

"The history of the Democratic Party commits it to the policy of slavery. It has been the Democratic Party, and no other agency, which has carried that policy up to its present alarming culmination."

"Such is the Democratic Party."

"The government of the United States, under the conduct of the Democratic Party, has been all that time surrendering one plain and castle after another to slavery."

"One of the first outspoken proponents of transoceanic imperialism was former abolitionist William H. Seward who was Lincoln's secretary of state and who considered it the destiny of the United States to dominate the Pacific Ocean."

"We have not Secretary Seward to thank, we have not President Lincoln to thank, we have not the govt of the United States to thank, we have not the commercial men nor the churches to thank; but we have Jeff Davis and the terrible persistency of the rebels to than, that there has been this change of conduct in the North. It was a matter of military necessity, and therefore we have it. And having been induced by military necessity, for the sake of self-preservation, we cannot rely upon it."

"Sparkling and bright in liquid light Does the wine our goblets gleam in; With hue as red as the rosy bed Which a bee would choose to dream in. Then fill to-night, with hearts as light To loves as gay and fleeting As bubbles that swim on the beaker’s brim And break on the lips while meeting."

"Only people who die very young learn all they really need to know in kindergarten."

"For the most part, executions happen in obscurity. If people did hear about executions, if they were publicized, even televised, I fear more would enjoy them than be repelled by them."

"I'm better at criticism than social engineering, so I always have a hard time answering good practical questions like "what can the average person do?" Of course, there are obvious answers, like the average person can get involved in local politics, the average person can get involved in violence prevention programs in his or her own neighborhood, the average person can engage with local radio and TV talk shows on crime. I'm afraid, though, that's not a very good answer. I'm best at knowing what I can do personally, which is write and think about issues like these, point out problems, and hope that people like you can do a better job than I can of figuring out where to go next. I've always seen the formulation of public policy — and solutions to social problems — as a collaborative effort. I've always felt that my part of the job was to analyze and criticize in the hope that other people might use my work to forge solutions."

"Not everything that appears true is true. The ACLU is devoted to some very controversial principles — like the principle that everyone who is arrested should enjoy the same constitutional rights, regardless of their alleged crime or their character. We don't take that position to irritate people; we take that position because we believe in it. We believe in it, in part, in a spirit of enlightened self-interest, because the rights of each one of us are co-extensive with the rights of everyone who is arrested and prosecuted in the criminal courts. If we all don't enjoy the same rights, then no one enjoys any rights at all; some of us merely enjoy privilege."

"Interactivity has the virtue of democracy, conferring upon everyone with access to a computer the right and opportunity to be heard, but it's also saddled with democracy's vice — a tendency to assume that everyone who has a right to be heard has something to say that's worth hearing."

"Jerry Falwell knows who caused the terrorist attack on America: the ACLU. “The ACLU’s got to take a lot of blame for this,” he declared on the 700 Club, because, he explained, the ACLU, abetted by the federal courts is responsible for “throwing God out of the public square (and) the public schools.” This is a familiar charge and a false one. God is still present in the public schools, where students are free to pray, alone or in groups, so long as their prayers aren’t officially sponsored and don’t infringe on anyone’s freedom not to pray."

"I’m not blaming religion for all or even most human barbarism. Of course faith in God generates compassion and altruism as well. Religious belief probably motivated some rescue workers who tried so heroically to save people from the wreckage. Religious belief offers solace and strength to people in the awful aftermath of the attack. But while they gather together to pray and seek comfort, protection, or approval from God, so do the terrorists. Whatever lessons we take from this dreadful attack, we should never forget that it was, after all, a faith based initiative."

"To rationalize their lies, people — and the governments, churches, or terrorist cells they compose — are apt to regard their private interests and desires as just. Clinton may have lied to preserve his power while telling himself that he was lying to protect “the people” who benefited from his presidency. Liars — especially liars in power — often conflate their interest with the public interest. (What’s good for General Motors is good for the United States.) Or they consider their lies sanctified by the essential goodness they presume to embody, like terrorists who believe that murder is sanctified by the godliness of their aspirations. Sanctimony probably engenders at least as much lying as cynicism. We can’t condemn lying categorically, but we should categorically suspect it."

"When the government seeks to expand its power to spy on us, for example, it should be required to show how the loss of anonymity and freedom will make us safer. The FBI already enjoys the broad power to eavesdrop; according to government reports, it intercepts some two million innocent telephone and Internet conversations every year. The administration wants to expand its power to conduct surveillance by minimizing the role of the courts in monitoring it. Will this make us safer from terrorism or simply less safe from our government?"

"Give the FBI unchecked domestic spying powers and instead of focusing on preventing terrorism, it will revert to doing what it does best — monitoring, harassing, and intimidating political dissidents and thousands of harmless immigrants."

"University of Delaware President Patrick Harker grudgungly terminated the ideological re-education program exposed by the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (and reported here last week.) FIRE has the story, which includes troubling accounts of threatened retaliation against students who declined to defend the now defunct "residence life" program and to demonize FIRE as an ideologically biased, conservative organization. (In fact, FIRE is a civil liberties group that advocates for the rights of all students, regardless of ideology.) This is a victory for freedom of speech and thought, of course, and one that demonstrates why preserving free speech is so essential. University of Delaware officials did not terminate this program because they suddenly realized the wrongfulness of subjecting students to mandatory thought reform. They terminated the program because it was publicly exposed, and, outside the university’s ideological bubble, it was simply indefensible."

"I'm king of the dead—and I make my throne On a monument slab of marble cold; And my scepter of rule is the spade I hold: Come they from cottage or come they from hall, Mankind are my subjects, all, all, all! Let them loiter in pleasure or toilfully spin— I gather them in, I gather them in!"

"Flowers are Love's truest language."

"The mountain rill Seeks with no surer flow the far bright sea, Than my unchang'd affections flow to thee."

"Great faith it needs, according to my view, To trust in that which never could be true."

"He loved his kind, but sought the love of few, And valued old opinions more than new."

"But then to part! to part when Time Has wreathed his tireless wing with flowers, And spread the richness of a clime Of fairy o'er this land of ours; When glistening leaves and shaded streams In the soft light of Autumn lay, And, like the music of our dreams, The viewless breezes seemed to stray— 'T was bitter then to rend the heart With the sad thought that we must part; And, like some low and mournful spell, To whisper but one word—farewell!"

"Pure and undimmed, thy angel smile Is mirrored on my dreams, Like evening's sunset-girded isle Upon her shadowed streams: And o'er my thoughts thy vision floats, Like melody of spring-bird, notes; When the blue halcyon gently laves His plumage in the flashing waves."

"Press on! there's no such word as fail! Press nobly on! the goal is near,— Ascend the mountain! breast the gale! Look upward, onward,—never fear! Why shouldst thou faint? Heaven smiles above, Though storm and vapor intervene; That sun shines on, whose name is Love, Serenely o'er Life's shadow'd scene."

"Press on! If Fortune play thee false To-day, tomorrow she'll be true; Whom now she sinks she now exalts, Taking old gifts and granting new, The wisdom of the present hour Makes up the follies past and gone; To weakness, strength succeeds, and power From frailty springs! Press on, press on!"

"Blandishments will not fascinate us, nor will threats of a 'halter' intimidate. For, under God, we are determined that wheresoever, whensoever, or howsoever we shall be called to make our exit, we will die free men."

"When the warrior returns, from the battle afar, To the home and the country he nobly defended, O! warm be the welcome to gladden his ear, And loud be the joy that his perils are ended: In the full tide of song let his fame roll along, To the feast-flowing board let us gratefully throng, Where, mixed with the olive, the laurel shall wave, And form a bright wreath for the brows of the brave."

"So sings the world's fond slave! so flies the dream Of life's gay morn; so sinks the meteor ray Of fancy into darkness; and no beam Of purer light shines on the wanderer's way.So sings not he who soars on other wings Than fancy lends him; whom a cheering faith Warms and sustains, and whose freed spirit springs To joys that bloom beyond the reach of death.And thou would'st live again! again dream o'er The wild and feverish visions of thy youth Again to wake in sorrow, and deplore Thy wanderings from the peaceful paths of truth! Yet yield not to despair! be born again, And thou shalt live a life of joy and peace, Shall die a death of triumph, and thy strain Be changed to notes of rapture ne'er to cease."

"If we believe in the existence of a great moral and political evil amongst us, and that duty, honour, and interest, call upon us to prepare the way for its removal, we must act."

"O say can you see by the dawn's early light, What so proudly we hailed at the twilight's last gleaming, Whose broad stripes and bright stars through the perilous fight, O'er the ramparts we watched, were so gallantly streaming? And the rockets' red glare, the bombs bursting in air, Gave proof through the night that our flag was still there; O say does that star-spangled banner yet wave, O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave?On the shore dimly seen through the mists of the deep, Where the foe's haughty host in dread silence reposes, What is that which the breeze, o'er the towering steep, As it fitfully blows, half conceals, half discloses? Now it catches the gleam of the morning's first beam, In full glory reflected now shines in the stream: 'Tis the star-spangled banner, O! long may it wave O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave. And where is that band who so vauntingly swore That the havoc of war and the battle's confusion, A home and a country, should leave us no more? Their blood has washed out their foul footsteps' pollution. No refuge could save the hireling and slave From the terror of flight, or the gloom of the grave: And the star-spangled banner in triumph doth wave, O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave.O thus be it ever, when freemen shall stand Between their loved home and the war's desolation. Blest with vict'ry and peace, may the Heav'n rescued land Praise the Power that hath made and preserved us a nation! Then conquer we must, when our cause it is just, And this be our motto: "In God is our trust." And the star-spangled banner in triumph shall wave O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave!"

"In this country … men seem to live for action as long as they can and sink into apathy when they retire."

"It would be superfluous in me to point out to your Lordship that this is war."

"More than all, and above all, Washington was master of himself. If there be one quality more than another in his character which may exercise a useful control over the men of the present hour, it is the total disregard of self when in the most elevated positions for influence and example."

"Huey Long once said, 'Fascism will come to America in the name of anti-fascism.' I'm afraid, based on my own experience, that fascism will come to America in the name of national security."

"This is not the first time I've charged a person before I've made the case." — Jim Garrison [James Phelan, Scandals, Scamps, and Scoundrels."

"I was burned so many times that I stopped giving interviews. In other words, if my words ended up in print, they were twisted in an indescribable fashion."

"Before we introduced the testimony of our witnesses, we made them undergo independent verifying tests, including polygraph examination, truth serum and hypnosis. We thought this would be hailed as an unprecedented step in jurisprudence; instead, the press turned around and hinted that we had drugged our witnesses or given them posthypnotic suggestions to testify falsely."

"...Witnesses in this case do have a habit of dying at the most inconvenient times. I understand a London insurance firm has prepared an actuarial chart on the likelihood of 20 of the people involved in this case dying within three years of the assassination -- and found the odds 30 trillion to one. But I'm sure NBC will shortly discover that one of my investigators bribed the computer."

"To show you how cosmically irrelevant the Warren Report is for the most part … one of the exhibits is classified in the front as, 'A Study of the Teeth of Jack Ruby's Mother.' Even if Jack Ruby had intended to bite Oswald to death, that still would not have been relevant."

"One of the stated objectives [of the Warren Commission] was to calm the fears of the people about a conspiracy. But in our country, the government has no right to calm our fears, any more than it has, for example, the right to excite our fears about Red China, or about fluoridation, or about birth control, or about anything. There's no room in America for thought control of any kind, no matter how benevolent the objective. Personally, I don't want to be calm about the assassination of John F. Kennedy. I don't want to be calm about a president of my country being shot down in the streets."

"In retrospect, the reason for the assassination is hardly a mystery. It is now abundantly clear … why the C.I.A.'s covert operations element wanted John Kennedy out of the Oval Office and Lyndon Johnson in it. The new President elevated by rifle fire to control of our foreign policy had been one of the most enthusiastic American cold warriors.... Johnson had originally risen to power on the crest of the fulminating anti-communist crusade which marked American politics after World War II. Shortly after the end of that war, he declaimed that atomic power had become 'ours to use, either to Christianize the world or pulverize it' -- a Christian benediction if ever there was one. Johnson's demonstrated enthusiasm for American military intervention abroad … earned him the sobriquet 'the senator from the Pentagon...."

"Jim Garrison... the New Orleans DA was an elected official who did not just challenge the Warren Commission; he actually put together an alternative theory of Kennedy’s assassination. That theory created intense interest and attracted a public following...a serious problem for the MSM. The press had embraced the Warren Report, all 800 pages of it. Now came an accomplished District Attorney who was saying that their much-ballyhooed report on the death of President Kennedy was rubbish. By doing that, Garrison was not just upsetting the MSM’s apple cart, but also the FBI, the Secret Service and the White House. After all, they had all cooperated and worked for several months on this much anticipated report. Could they all have been so easily taken in by the Dallas Police? Or was there something else at work? Perhaps a deliberate cover-up? If so, why? What could be behind such an evil act and its elaborate concealment?"

"By raising these questions, Garrison was upsetting the establishment. Therefore, he was harshly attacked by all elements of the power structure. Almost no one in the media—except the LA Free Press, Ramparts and Playboy magazines—gave him a fair hearing. Every major newspaper, magazine, and TV network discounted or attacked him—none treated him fairly or even handedly. Elements of the government illegally spied on him, sent infiltrators into his camp, wired his office, tapped his phone, and launched subversive operations against his investigative efforts. (See William Davy, Let Justice be Done, Chapter 12) When Garrison complained about these actions, the MSM ignored him. Today, after the disclosures of the Assassination Records Review Board, they cannot be ignored. For the simple matter that the acts of subversion can now be proven with declassified documents."

"Duluth! The word fell upon my ear with a peculiar and indescribable charm, like the gentle murmur of a low fountain stealing forth in the midst of roses, or the soft sweet accent of an angel’s whisper in the bright, joyous dream of sleeping innocence. ’T was the name for which my soul had panted for years, as the hart panteth for the water-brooks."

"I think every gentleman on this floor is as well satisfied as I am that Duluth is destined to become the commercial metropolis of the universe, and that this road should be built at once."

"But that is the way of the place: down our many twisting corridors, one encounters story after story, some heroic, some villainous, some true, some false, some funny, some tragic, and all of them combining to form the mystical, undefinable entity we call the school. Not exactly the building, not exactly the faculty or the students or the alumni — more than all those things but also less, a paradox, an order, a mystery, a monster, an utter joy."

"Depression is seductive: it offends and teases, frightens you and draws you in, tempting you with its promise of sweet oblivion, then overwhelming you with a nearly sexual power, squirming past your defenses, dissolving your will, invading the tired spirit so utterly that it becomes difficult to recall that you ever lived without it...or to imagine that you might live that way again. With all the guile of Satan himself, depression persuades you that its invasion was all your own idea, that you wanted it all along. It fogs the part of the brain that reasons, that knows right and wrong. It captures you with its warm, guilty, hateful pleasures, and, worst of all, it becomes familiar. All at once, you find yourself in thrall to the very thing that most terrifies you. Your work slides, your friendships slide, your marriage slides, but you scarcely notice: to be depressed is to be half in love with disaster."

"You should never fall in love with your own press clippings, because it is very much the nature of the beast that the same journalists who build you up between Monday and Friday tear you down for weekend fun...My family's habit of living in the past seems to me pathological, even dangerous. If all greatness lies in the past, what is the point of the future?"

"True love is not the helpless desire to possess the cherished object of one's fervent affection; true love is the disciplined generosity we require of ourselves for the sake of another when we would rather be selfish; that, at least, is how I have taught myself to love my wife."

"We live so much of our lives in chaos. Human history can be viewed as an endless search for greater order: everything from language to religion to law to science tries to impose a framework on chaotic existence. The existentialists, sometimes wrongly described as disbelieving in an underlying order, saw the risks and the foolishness of the obsession with creating one. Hitler showed the risk, as did any number of populist tyrants before him. I teach my students that law, too, shows the risk, when we try to regulate a phenomenon—human behavior—that we do not even understand. I am not arguing against law...but against the Panglossian assumption that we can ever do law particularly well. The darkness in which we live dooms us to do it badly."

"Although every believing Christian understands that God guides our steps, fewer and fewer emphasize the point. A God working actively in the world makes us uneasy. We tend to like our God distant and a bit malleable, ready to bend to every new human idea. A God with a will of his own is too scary, and, besides, he might get in the way of our satisfaction of immediate desire."

"These children...well, they have no concept. None. All they want to do is win. That is your culture. America spoils chess, as it spoils all things. Art? What art? Winning, all you Americans can think of is winning. Winning and getting rich. Your country is too young to have so much power. Too immature. Yet, because of your power, everybody pays attention. Everybody. You are teaching the world that only one thing matters!"

"We live today in a world in which nobody believes choices should have consequences. But may I tell you the great secret that our culture seeks to deny? You cannot escape the consequences of your choices. Time runs in only one direction."

"Rumor is rarely more interesting than fact, but it is always more readily available."

"A cemetery is an affront to the rational mind. One reason is its eerily wasted space, this tribute to the dead that inevitably degenerates into ancestor worship as, on birthdays and anniversaries, humans of every faith and no faith at all brave whatever weather may that day threaten, in order to stand before these rows of silent stone markers, praying, yes, and remembering, of course, but very often actually speaking to the deceased, an oddly pagan ritual in which we engage, this shared pretense that the rotted corpses in warped wooden boxes are able to hear and understand us if we stand before their graves.The other reason a cemetery appeals to the irrational side is its obtrusive, irresistible habit of sneaking past the civilized veneer with which we cover the primitive planks of our childhood fears. When we are children, we know that what our parents insist is merely a tree branch blowing in the wind is really the gnarled fingertip of some horrific creature of the night, waiting outside the window, tapping, tapping, tapping, to let us know that, as soon as our parents close the door and sentence us to the gloom which they insist builds character, he will lift the sash and dart inside and...And there childhood imagination usually runs out, unable to give shape to the precise fears that have kept us awake and that will, in a few months, be forgotten entirely. Until we next visit a cemetery, that is, when, suddenly, the possibility of some terrifying creature of the night seems remarkably real."

"The racists are having their revenge."

"Liberalism, for all its virtues, has begun to develop a sense of entitlement, and needs time to rediscover its soul."

"Liberalism in its political instantiation, for all of its appeal, is so powerful a theory that it probably works better in opposition than in government. Modern liberalism has become what liberal philosophers not long ago would have derided as a “comprehensive view” -- a theory that believes itself able to give an account of how every institution of the society should operate, and even, alas, how people should think. Add to that a dash of triumphalism, and you wind up with a government impatient with the tendency of human beings to resist having too much forced on them at once."

"The mark of a healthy democracy is the preference for argument rather than invective. Those are the roots the left must reclaim."

"When Spring is old, and dewy winds Blow from the south, with odors sweet, I see my love, in shadowy groves, Speed down dark aisles on shining feet."

"She throws a kiss, and bids me run In whispers sweet as roses’ breath; I know I can not win the race, And at the end, I know, is death."

"Bubble, bubble, flows the stream Like an old tune through a dream."

"I think my basic viewpoint is that everything the left and right say about each other is true. And the reason it's true is because they have so much in common."

"I look for the sources of domination and misery that are so deep down that they apply to the system and the apply to its supposed opposition also. … Basically, revolutionaries never go far enough, and if they're not going to go far enough, they should stop upsetting people. Or killing them, for that matter."

"I was never a member of For Ourselves, the San Francisco Bay Area pro-situationist group which wrote and self-published The Right to Be Greedy in 1974. The principal author was Bruce Gardner, who has long since dropped out of sight."

"I was coming from the New Left of the 60’s, but I was increasingly disgruntled with the left of the 70’s. It retained or exaggerated all the faults of the 60’s left (such as current-events myopia, theoretical incoherence, historical amnesia and — especially — the cult of the victim) while denying or diminishing its merits, among them a sense of revolution against the totality, a sense of verve and vitality, and a sense of humor. The left demanded more sacrifice and promised less satisfaction, as if there was not already too much sacrifice and too little satisfaction. I began to wonder whether the failure of the left to root itself in a substantial social base, or even to hold on to much of what base it once had (mostly on campus, and among the intelligentsia, and in the counter-culture), might not in part derive from its own deficiencies, and not only from government repression and manipulation. Maybe the leftists were not so smart or the masses so stupid after all. Guilt-tripping might not go over very well with ordinary people who know they are too powerless to be too guilty of anything. Demands for sacrifice lack appeal for those who have already sacrificed, and been sacrificed, too much and for too long. The future promised by the left looked to be — at worst, even worse — and at best, not noticeably better than the status quo. Why rush to the barricades or, for that matter, why even bother to vote?"

"Most libertarians think of themselves as in some sense egoists. If they believe in rights, they believe these rights belong to them as individuals. If not, they nonetheless look to themselves and others as so many individuals possessed of power to be reckoned with. Either way, they assume that the opposite of egoism is altruism. The altruists, Christian or Maoist, agree. A cozy accomodation; and, I submit, a suspicious one. What if this antagonistic intedependence, this reciprocal reliance reflects and conceals an accord? Could egoism be altruism’s loyal opposition?"

"The individualists have only worshipped their whims. The point, however, is to live them. Is this a put-on, a piece of parlor preciosity? There is more than a touch of that here. Or a mushminded exercise in incongruous eclecticism? The individualist egoist is bound to be skeptical, but he should not be too quick to deprive himself of the insights (and the entertainment!) of this unique challenge to his certitudes. The contradictions are obvious, but whether they derive from the authors’ irrationality or from their fidelity to the real quality of lived experience is not so easy to say. If "Marxism-Stirnerism" is conceivable, every orthodoxy prating of freedom or liberation is called into question, anarchism included. The only reason to read this book, as its authors would be the first to agree, is for what you can get out of it."

"Egoism in its narrowest sense is a tautology, not a tactic. Adolescents of all ages who triumphantly trumpet that "everyone is selfish," as if they’d made a factual discovery about the world, only show that they literally don’t know what they’re talking about. Practical egoism must be something more, it must tell the egoist something useful about himself and other selves which will make a difference in his life (and, as it happens, theirs). My want, needs, desires, whims — call them what you will — extend the ego, which is my-self purposively acting, out where the other selves await me. If I deal with them, as the economists say, "at arm’s length," I can’t get as close as I need to for so much of what I want. At any rate, no "spook," no ideology is going to get in my way. Do you have ideas, or do ideas have you?"

"A libertarian is just a Republican who takes drugs."

"There are libertarians who try to retrieve libertarianism from the Libertarian Party just as there are Christians who try to reclaim Christianity from Christendom and communists (I’ve tried to myself) who try to save communism from the Communist parties and states. They (and I) meant well but we lost."

"My target is what most libertarians have in common — with each other, and with their ostensible enemies. Libertarians serve the state all the better because they declaim against it. At bottom, they want what it wants. But you can’t want what the state wants without wanting the state, for what the state wants is the conditions in which it flourishes."

"My (unfriendly) approach to modern society is to regard it as an integrated totality. Silly doctrinaire theories which regard the state as a parasitic excrescence on society cannot explain its centuries-long persistence, its ongoing encroachment upon what was previously market terrain, or its acceptance by the overwhelming majority of people including its demonstrable victims."

"To demonize state authoritarianism while ignoring identical albeit contract-consecrated subservient arrangements in the large-scale corporations which control the world economy is fetishism at its worst."

"If your language lacks poetry and paradox, it’s unequal to the task of accounting for actuality. Otherwise anything radically new is literally unspeakable."

"You might object that what I’ve said may apply to the minarchist majority of libertarians, but not to the self-styled anarchists among them. Not so. To my mind a right-wing anarchist is just a minarchist who’d abolish the state to his own satisfaction by calling it something else. But this incestuous family squabble is no affair of mine. Both camps call for partial or complete privatization of state functions but neither questions the functions themselves. They don’t denounce what the state does, they just object to who’s doing it. This is why the people most victimized by the state display the least interest in libertarianism. Those on the receiving end of coercion don’t quibble over their coercers’ credentials. If you can’t pay or don’t want to, you don’t much care if your deprivation is called larceny or taxation or restitution or rent. If you like to control your own time, you distinguish employment from enslavement only in degree and duration."

"Without even entering into the question of the world economy’s ultimate dictation within narrow limits of everybody’s productive activity, it’s apparent that the source of the greatest direct duress experienced by the ordinary adult is not the state but rather the business that employs him. Your foreman or supervisor gives you more or-else orders in a week than the police do in a decade."

"Some people giving orders and others obeying them: this is the essence of servitude. Of course, as Hospers smugly observes, “one can at least change jobs,” but you can’t avoid having a job — just as under statism one can at least change nationalities but you can’t avoid subjection to one nation-state or another. But freedom means more than the right to change masters."

"Most work serves the predatory purposes of commerce and coercion and can be abolished outright. The rest can be automated away and/or transformed — by the experts, the workers who do it — into creative, playlike pastimes whose variety and conviviality will make extrinsic inducements like the capitalist carrot and the Communist stick equally obsolete. In the hopefully impending meta-industrial revolution, libertarian communists revolting against work will settle accounts with “libertarians” and “Communists” working against revolt. And then we can go for the gusto!"

"Murray Rothbard thinks egalitarianism is a revolt against nature, but his day is 24 hours long, just like everybody else’s. If you spend most of your waking life taking orders or kissing ass, if you get habituated to hierarchy, you will become passive-aggressive, sado-masochistic, servile and stupefied, and you will carry that load into every aspect of the balance of your life. Incapable of living a life of liberty, you’ll settle for one of its ideological representations, like libertarianism. You can’t treat values like workers, hiring and firing them at will and assigning each a place in an imposed division of labor. The taste for freedom and pleasure can’t be compartmentalized."

"Libertarians complain that the state is parasitic, an excrescence on society. They think it’s like a tumor you could cut out, leaving the patient just as he was, only healthier. They’ve been mystified by their own metaphors. Like the market, the state is an activity, not an entity. The only way to abolish the state is to change the way of life it forms a part of. That way of life, if you call that living, revolves around work and takes in bureaucracy, moralism, schooling, money, and more. Libertarians are conservatives because they avowedly want to maintain most of this mess and so unwittingly perpetuate the rest of the racket. But they’re bad conservatives because they’ve forgotten the reality of institutional and ideological interconnection which was the original insight of the historical conservatives. Entirely out of touch with the real currents of contemporary resistance, they denounce practical opposition to the system as “nihilism,” “Luddism,” and other big words they don’t understand. A glance at the world confirms that their utopian capitalism just can’t compete with the state. With enemies like libertarians, the state doesn’t need friends."

"No one should ever work. Work is the source of nearly all the misery in the world. Almost all the evil you'd care to name comes from working or from living in a world designed for work. In order to stop suffering, we have to stop working. That doesn't mean we have to stop doing things. It does mean creating a new way of life based on play; in other words, a ludic revolution. By "play" I mean also festivity, creativity, conviviality, commensality, and maybe even art. There is more to play than child's play, as worthy as that is. I call for a collective adventure in generalized joy and freely interdependent exuberance. Play isn't passive."

"These experts who offer to do our thinking for us rarely share their conclusions about work, for all its saliency in the lives of all of us. Among themselves they quibble over the details. Unions and management agree that we ought to sell the time of our lives in exchange for survival, although they haggle over the price. Marxists think we should be bossed by bureaucrats. Libertarians think we should be bossed by businessmen. Feminists don't care which form bossing takes so long as the bosses are women. Clearly these ideology-mongers have serious differences over how to divvy up the spoils of power. Just as clearly, none of them have any objection to power as such and all of them want to keep us working. You may be wondering if I'm joking or serious. I'm joking and serious. To be ludic is not to be ludicrous. Play doesn't have to be frivolous, although frivolity isn't triviality: very often we ought to take frivolity seriously. I'd like life to be a game — but a game with high stakes. I want to play for keeps."

"I am not playing definitional games with anybody. When I say I want to abolish work, I mean just what I say, but I want to say what I mean by defining my terms in non-idiosyncratic ways. My minimum definition of work is forced labor, that is, compulsory production. Both elements are essential. Work is production enforced by economic or political means, by the carrot or the stick. (The carrot is just the stick by other means.) But not all creation is work. Work is never done for its own sake, it's done on account of some product or output that the worker (or, more often, somebody else) gets out of it. This is what work necessarily is. To define it is to despise it. But work is usually even worse than its definition decrees. The dynamic of domination intrinsic to work tends over time toward elaboration. In advanced work-riddled societies, including all industrial societies whether capitalist or "communist," work invariably acquires other attributes which accentuate its obnoxiousness. Usually—and this is even more true in "communist" than capitalist countries, where the state is almost the only employer and everyone is an employee — work is employment, i.e., wage-labor, which means selling yourself on the installment plan. Thus 95% of Americans who work, work for somebody (or something) else. In the USSR or Cuba or Yugoslavia or Nicaragua or any other alternative model which might be adduced, the corresponding figure approaches 100%. Only the embattled Third World peasant bastions — Mexico, India, Brazil, Turkey — temporarily shelter significant concentrations of agriculturists who perpetuate the traditional arrangement of most laborers in the last several millennia, the payment of taxes (ransom) to the state or rent to parasitic landlords in return for being otherwise left alone. Even this raw deal is beginning to look good. All industrial (and office) workers are employees and under the sort of surveillance which ensures servility."

"Play is always voluntary. What might otherwise be play is work if it's forced. This is axiomatic."

"Work makes a mockery of freedom. The official line is that we all have rights and live in a democracy. Other unfortunates who aren't free like we are have to live in police states. These victims obey orders or-else, no matter how arbitrary. The authorities keep them under regular surveillance. State bureaucrats control even the smaller details of everyday life. The officials who push them around are answerable only to the higher-ups, public or private. Either way, dissent and disobedience are punished. Informers report regularly to the authorities. All this is supposed to be a very bad thing. And so it is, although it is nothing but a description of the modern workplace. The liberals and conservatives and libertarians who lament totalitarianism are phonies and hypocrites. There is more freedom in any moderately de-Stalinized dictatorship than there is in the ordinary American workplace. You find the same sort of hierarchy and discipline in an office or factory as you do in a prison or a monastery. In fact, as Foucault and others have shown, prisons and factories came in at about the same time, and their operators consciously borrowed from each other's control techniques. A worker is a part-time slave. The boss says when to show up, when to leave, and what to do in the meantime. He tells you how much work to do and how fast. He is free to carry his control to humiliating extremes, regulating, if he feels like it, the clothes you wear or how often you go to the bathroom. With a few exceptions he can fire you for any reason, or no reason. He has you spied on by snitches and supervisors; he amasses a dossier on every employee. Talking back is called "insubordination," just as if a worker is a naughty child, and it not only gets you fired, it disqualifies you for unemployment compensation."

"The demeaning system of domination I've described rules over half the waking hours of a majority of women and the vast majority of men for decades, for most of their lifespans. For certain purposes it's not too misleading to call our system democracy or capitalism or — better still — industrialism, but its real names are factory fascism and office oligarchy. Anybody who says these people are "free" is lying or stupid. You are what you do. If you do boring, stupid monotonous work, chances are you'll end up boring, stupid and monotonous. Work is a much better explanation for the creeping cretinization all around us than even such significant moronizing mechanisms as television and education. People who are regimented all their lives, handed off to work from school and bracketed by the family in the beginning and the nursing home at the end, are habituated to hierarchy and psychologically enslaved. Their aptitude for autonomy is so atrophied that their fear of freedom is among their few rationally grounded phobias. Their obedience training at work carries over into the families they start, thus reproducing the system in more ways than one, and into politics, culture and everything else. Once you drain the vitality from people at work, they'll likely submit to hierarchy and expertise in everything. They're used to it."

"We are so close to the world of work that we can't see what it does to us. We have to rely on outside observers from other times or other cultures to appreciate the extremity and the pathology of our present position."

"Socrates said that manual laborers make bad friends and bad citizens because they have no time to fulfill the responsibilities of friendship and citizenship. He was right. Because of work, no matter what we do we keep looking at our watches. The only thing "free" about so-called free time is that it doesn't cost the boss anything. Free time is mostly devoted to getting ready for work, going to work, returning from work, and recovering from work. Free time is a euphemism for the peculiar way labor as a factor of production not only transports itself at its own expense to and from the workplace but assumes primary responsibility for its own maintenance and repair. Coal and steel don't do that. Lathes and typewriters don't do that. But workers do."

"What I really want to see is work turned into play. A first step is to discard the notions of a "job" and an "occupation." Even activities that already have some ludic content lose most of it by being reduced to jobs which certain people, and only those people, are forced to do to the exclusion of all else. Is it not odd that farm workers toil painfully in the fields while their airconditioned masters go home every weekend and putter about in their gardens? Under a system of permanent revelry, we will witness the Golden Age of the dilettante which will put the Renaissance to shame. There won't be any more jobs, just things to do and people to do them."

"No one can say what would result from unleashing the creative power stultified by work. Anything can happen. The tiresome debater's problem of freedom vs. necessity, with its theological overtones, resolves itself practically once the production of use-values is co-extensive with the consumption of delightful play activity. Life will become a game, or rather many games, but not—as it is now — a zero/sum game. An optimal sexual encounter is the paradigm of productive play. The participants potentiate each other's pleasures, nobody keeps score, and everybody wins. The more you give, the more you get. In the ludic life, the best of sex will diffuse into the better part of daily life. Generalized play leads to the libidinization of life. Sex, in turn, can become less urgent and desperate, more playful. If we play our cards right, we can all get more out of life than we put into it; but only if we play for keeps. No one should ever work. Workers of the world. . . relax!"

"There is no need at present to produce new definitions of anarchism — it would be hard to improve on those long since devised by various eminent dead foreigners. Nor need we linger over the familiar hyphenated anarchisms, communist- and individualist- and so forth; the textbooks cover all that. More to the point is why we are no closer to anarchy today than were Godwin and Proudhon and Kropotkin and Goldman in their times."

"My considered judgment, after years of scrutiny of, and sometimes harrowing activity in the anarchist milieu, is that anarchists are a main reason — I suspect, a sufficient reason — why anarchy remains an epithet without a prayer of a chance to be realized. Most anarchists are, frankly, incapable of living in an autonomous cooperative manner. A lot of them aren't very bright. They tend to peruse their own classics and insider literature to the exclusion of broader knowledge of the world we live in. Essentially timid, they associate with others like themselves with the tacit understanding that nobody will measure anybody else's opinions and actions against any standard of practical critical intelligence; that no one by his or her individual achievements will rise too far above the prevalent level; and, above all, that nobody challenges the shibboleths of anarchist ideology."

"The history of anarchism is a history of unparalleled defeat and martyrdom, yet anarchists venerate their victimized forebears with a morbid devotion which occasions suspicion that the anarchists, like everybody else, think that the only good anarchist is a dead one. Revolution — defeated revolution — is glorious, but it belongs in books and pamphlets. In this century — Spain in 1936 and France in 1968 are especially clear cases — the revolutionary upsurge caught the official, organized anarchists flat-footed and initially non-supportive or worse. The reason is not far to seek. It's not that all these ideologues were hypocrites (some were). Rather, they had worked out a daily routine of anarchist militancy, one they unconsciously counted on to endure indefinitely since revolution isn't really imaginable in the here-and-now, and they reacted with fear and defensiveness when events outdistanced their rhetoric. In other words, given a choice between anarchism and anarchy, most anarchists would go for the anarchism ideology and subculture rather than take a dangerous leap into the unknown, into a world of stateless liberty."

"In truth the anarchists who assume the name have done nothing to challenge the state, not with windy unread jargon-filled writings, but with the contagious example of another way to relate to other people. Anarchists as they conduct the anarchism business are the best refutation of anarchist pretensions."

"Every organization has more in common with every other organization than it does with any of the unorganized. The anarchist critique of the state, if only the anarchists understood it, is but a special case of the critique of organization. And, at some level, even anarchist organizations sense this. Anti-anarchists may well conclude that if there is to be hierarchy and coercion, let it be out in the open, clearly labeled as such. Unlike these pundits (the right-wing "libertarians", the minarchists, for instance) I stubbornly persist in my opposition to the state. But not because, as anarchists so often thoughtlessly declaim, the state is not "necessary". Ordinary people dismiss this anarchist assertion as ludicrous, and so they should. Obviously, in an industrialized class society like ours, the state is necessary. The point is that the state has created the conditions in which it is indeed necessary, by stripping individuals and face-to-face voluntary associations of their powers. More fundamentally, the state's underpinnings (work, moralism, industrial technology, hierarchic organizations) are not necessary but rather antithetical to the satisfactions of real needs and desires. Unfortunately, most brands of anarchism endorse all these premises yet balk at their logical conclusion: the state. If there were no anarchists, the state would have had to invent them. We know that on several occasions it has done just that. We need anarchists unencumbered by anarchism. Then, and only then, we can begin to get serious about fomenting anarchy."

"Please allow me to introduce myself … I am Black the Knife, I am secretly famous, I have designer genes. I’m on a macropsychotic diet, I’m anarchorexic, I underwent paleolithium treatment, I’m the 6-Pac-Man! I not only know Who Wrote the Book of Love, I edited out the mushy parts!"

"I tell everyone not to do what I say! I’m behind the odd-ball, my ancestor was Putdown Man! Judge Crater freed me on my own recognizance, I ask: “What would Harpo say?” For me, know ain’t nothing but no misspelled, and all cretins are liars. I go-for-baroque, I’m a lowlife hierarch, I picked the Locke and entered the Avant-Garden of Eden. I got Spartacus to take the rap for me! I’m the heavyweight Light-Bringer, I'm the out-of-court jester who won't settle, I up the vigilante, I'm a law unto myself but break it anyway! I made a forced landing on the Moebius Strip and now I want to know, which side are you on?"

"Cleansed of its leftist residues, anarchy — anarchism minus Marxism — will be free to get better at being what it is."

"As for "decadence," that is an eminently bourgeois swear-word for people perceived to be having more fun than you are."

"Although it is by definition a union-oriented ideology, there is no perceptible syndicalist presence in any union. A syndicalist is more likely to be a professor than a proletarian, more likely to be a folk singer than a factory worker. Organizers on principle, syndicalists are disunited and factionalized. Remarkably, this dullest of all anarchisms attracts some of the most irrational and hysterical adherents. Only a rather small minority of North American anarchists are syndicalists. Syndicalism will persist, if at all, as a campus-based cult in increasing isolation from the main currents of anarchism."

"There is life after the left. And there is anarchy after anarchism. Post-leftist anarchists are striking off in many directions. Some may find the way — better yet, the ways — to a free future."

"Robert C. Black has gone on to celebrate Anarchy After Leftism, in a book whose smokescreen of insult and vitriol hides a basic lack of ideas about what "anarchy after leftism" really represents, apart perhaps from the supremacy of self-interest. In these writings anarchism's longstanding socialist dimension is jettisoned in favor of individual escapades. Black's personal conduct has mirrored his amoral views. In 1996, he acted as a police narcotics informant against Seattle author Jim Hogshire, resulting in a police raid on Hogshire's home. … one of the most disquieting observations that Bufe makes is that some anarchists have reacted to incidents of immorality and even violence with indifference: "Sure Bob Black is a destructive nut,"he quotes one as saying, "but he hasn't attacked us." Similarly, a comrade in the Netherlands —where Black's writings have, astonishingly, gained some popularity—has told me that when he tells Black's local fans of his violent and unethical activities, they respond with equal indifference. Currently in the U.S., despite Black's narcing on Jim Hogshire — a widely known betrayal of anarchist principles (contact Loompanics for details) — at least a few vocal "anarchists" continue to support Black and his brand of amoral egoism. Such unconcern is a far cry from the left-libertarian ethos that once proclaimed, "An injury to one is an injury to all!" Apathy in the face of immoral and unjust behavior toward one's fellow anarchists, let alone toward one's fellow human beings, reflects a grave breach of the ethical standards with which anarchists have long identified themselves, in contrast to many marxists and, especially, leninists. Ethics lies at the heart of a truly libertarian movement that offers a vision of a cooperative and humane society. An anarchism that dismisses even gross violations of basic ethical standards with an anemic shrug has not only lost its moral high ground as the libertarian alternative to authoritarian or state socialism; it has undermined its claim to represent a movement for basic change, individual as well as social. Instead it has become a pseudo-rebellious conceit, a self-serving gloss, a passing stage of late childhood development, or as Bufe puts it very well, a fashion trend."

"Bob Black is the high priest of nihilarity. His confessional has Duchamp’s urinal bolted to its door. His ten commandments are a string of one liners. His faith is baldly heretical. It begins where the dictionary ends, not with the ZZZ of a snore but with the chaotic rumbling of a chortle that quickens the senses like an earthquake that sways a petrified forest. By virtue of his faults, Black derides the wheel without spokes, the mandala of zero, and demoralizes the mind forged hi-techtonics whose poison prescribes that one seismograph counterfeits all. By virtue of genuine delight his texts are both alive and enlivening. He is the extraordinary magician who pulls the perpetually unexpected, the silk purse, from out of the squealing sow’s ear. Within these pages nothing is not as it seems, and the winged horse Pegasus flies forth from the neck of the beheaded Medusa."

"Hail, Columbia! happy land! Hail, ye heroes! heaven-born band! Who fought and bled in Freedom’s cause, Who fought and bled in Freedom’s cause, And when the storm of war was gone, Enjoyed the peace your valor won. Let independence be our boast, Ever mindful what it cost; Ever grateful for the prize, Let its altar reach the skies!"

"Never talk when you can nod and never nod when you can wink and never write an e-mail, because it's death. You're giving prosecutors all the evidence we need."

"One of the biggest lies in capitalism is that companies like competition. They don't. Nobody likes competition."

"As an exercise of raw judicial power, the Court perhaps has authority to do what it does today; but, in my view, its judgment is an improvident and extravagant exercise of the power of judicial review that the Constitution extends to this Court."

"It is not better that all felony suspects die than that they escape. Where the suspect poses no immediate threat to the officer and no threat to others, the harm resulting from failing to apprehend him does not justify the use of deadly force to do so. It is no doubt unfortunate when a suspect who is in sight escapes, but the fact that the police arrive a little late or are a little slower afoot does not always justify killing the suspect."

"We're the only branch of government that explains itself in writing every time it makes a decision."

"The issue presented is whether the Federal Constitution confers a fundamental right upon homosexuals to engage in sodomy, and hence invalidates the laws of the many States that still make such conduct illegal, and have done so for a very long time…. Respondent would have us announce, as the Court of Appeals did, a fundamental right to engage in homosexual sodomy. This we are quite unwilling to do."

"The Court is most vulnerable and comes nearest to illegitimacy when it deals with judge-made constitutional law having little or no cognizable roots in the language or design of the Constitution…. There should be, therefore, great resistance to … redefining the category of rights deemed to be fundamental. Otherwise, the Judiciary necessarily takes to itself further authority to govern the country without express constitutional authority."

"While the collateral consequences of drugs such as cocaine are indisputably severe, they are not unlike those which flow from the misuse of other, legal, substances."

"I cannot think of a single answer that I made in the years that I argued before the Court while Justice White sat on it that seemed to satisfy him. While I won a number of cases that I argued before him, and he voted for my side in most of them, I never had the sense that anything I said pleased him. White, a former All-American running back (whose much-repeated college nickname, Whizzer, was one that appalled him), was no fan of press claims for broad First Amendment protection. He invariably asked questions that were both pointed and powerful."

"The same qualities that made him a memorable jurist would make him a lightning rod for fierce opposition if he were named to the Supreme Court now."

"Preferring members of any one group for no reason other than race or ethnic origin is discrimination for its own sake. This the Constitution forbids."

"The Court is perhaps one of the last citadels of jealously preserved individualism. For the most part, we function as nine, small independent law firms."

"I don't believe I've ever met a homosexual"

"I know of no other nation in history that deliberately fought a major war with no intention or effort to use its full available forces to carry the war to the enemy's heartland: in Vietnam the capability to do so clearly existed. The effect of this strategy on the attitudes of our own people, and on foreign attitudes toward America, are well known. Less well known are its consequences in Southeast Asia, which include the exodus of the boat people from Vietnam and the Communist genocide in Cambodia."

"It was abundantly clear from his letters that, virtually to the end, he remained deeply interested in national and world events. Yet he never ceased to engage in self-deprecating humor. I have a file containing a decade of correspondence with my dear friend. It is a file that I will keep. Max's death on April 19 was not unexpected and I am sure he would have viewed it as merciful. At the moving funeral service at Fort Meyer, Ambassador Philip Bonsal, a respected diplomat and longtime friend of the Taylors', spoke eloquently of General Taylor's "example", and correctly said that his friendship would remain a constant treasure in the lives of all of us who knew him. His younger son Tom's superb tribute brought tears to the eyes of most of us. He emphasized the closeness of the Taylor family- a closeness not often found in the lives of the world's great leaders. It typifies the mind and spirit that I was privileged to know. Maxwell Taylor's place in history will be a large one."

"I think I probably made a mistake in the Hardwick case... I do think it was inconsistent in a general way with Roe. When I had the opportunity to reread the opinions a few months later, I thought the dissent had the better of the arguments."

"I do not believe it is the function of the judiciary to step in and change the law because the times have changed. I do well understand the difference between legislating and judging. As a judge, it is not my function to develop public policy."

"The proper role of the judiciary is one of interpreting and applying the law, not making it."

"It is difficult to discern a serious threat to religious liberty from a room of silent, thoughtful schoolchildren."

"The Constitution does not protect the sovereignty of States for the benefit of the States or state governments as abstract political entities, or even for the benefit of the public officials governing the States. To the contrary, the Constitution divides authority between federal and state governments for the protection of individuals."

"The First Amendment expresses our Nation’s fundamental commitment to religious liberty by means of two provisions–one protecting the free exercise of religion, the other barring establishment of religion. They were written by the descendants of people who had come to this land precisely so that they could practice their religion freely. Together with the other First Amendment guarantees–of free speech, a free press, and the rights to assemble and petition–the Religion Clauses were designed to safeguard the freedom of conscience and belief that those immigrants had sought. They embody an idea that was once considered radical: Free people are entitled to free and diverse thoughts, which government ought neither to constrain nor to direct."

"Reasonable minds can disagree about how to apply the Religion Clauses in a given case. But the goal of the Clauses is clear: to carry out the Founders’ plan of preserving religious liberty to the fullest extent possible in a pluralistic society. By enforcing the Clauses, we have kept religion a matter for the individual conscience, not for the prosecutor or bureaucrat. At a time when we see around the world the violent consequences of the assumption of religious authority by government, Americans may count themselves fortunate: Our regard for constitutional boundaries has protected us from similar travails, while allowing private religious exercise to flourish. [...] Those who would renegotiate the boundaries between church and state must therefore answer a difficult question: Why would we trade a system that has served us so well for one that has served others so poorly?"

"It is true that many Americans find the Commandments in accord with their personal beliefs. But we do not count heads before enforcing the First Amendment."

"[C]opyright assures authors the right to their original expression, but encourages others to build freely upon the ideas and information conveyed by a work. [...] This result is neither unfair nor unfortunate. It is the means by which copyright advances the progress of science and art."

"It is the individual who can and does make a difference even in this increasingly populous, complex world of ours. The individual can make things happen. It is the individual who can bring a tear to my eye and then cause me to take pen in hand. It is the individual who has acted or tried to act who will not only force a decision but also have a hand in shaping it. Whether acting in the legal, governmental, or private realm, one concerned and dedicated person can meaningfully affect what some consider an uncaring world. So give freely of yourself always to your family, your friends, your community, and your country. The world will pay you back many times over."

"From her early years on the Lazy B ranch in Arizona to her role as the first woman on the Supreme Court, Sandra Day O'Connor has personified the American pioneer. She secured a central role on the court by blending determination with a politician's skill at bringing people together."

"Human law must rest its authority ultimately upon the authority of that law which is divine. Far from being rivals or enemies religion and law are twin sisters, friends, and mutual assistance. Indeed, these two sciences run into each other."

"We have viewed, in a number of instances, the accommodating spirit of the common law. In other instances, its temper is decided and firm. The means are varied according to times and circumstances; but the great ends of liberty are kept steadily and constantly in view. Its foundations were laid in remote antiquity, have not been overturned by the successive invasions, or migrations, or revolutions which have taken place. The reason has already been hinted at: it contains the common dictates of nature, refined by wisdom and experience, as occasions offer, and cases arise. In all sciences, says my Lord Bacon, they are the soundest that keep closest to particulars. Indeed a science appears to be best formed into a system, by a number of instances drawn from observation and experience, and reduced gradually into general rules; still subject, however, to successive improvements, which future observation or experience may suggest to be proper. The natural progress of the human mind, in the acquisition of knowledge, is from particular facts to general principles. This progress is familiar to all in the business of life; it is the only one, by which real discoveries have been made in philosophy; and it is the one, which has directed and superintended the instauration of the common law. In this view, common law, like natural philosophy, when properly studied, is a science founded on experiment. The latter is improved and established by carefully and wisely attending to the phenomena of the material world; the former, by attending, in the same manner, to those of man and society. Hence, in both, the most regular and undeviating principles will be found, on accurate investigation, to guide and control the most diversified and disjointed appearances. How steadily and how effectually has the spirit of liberty animated the common law, in all the vicissitudes, revolutions, and dangers, to which that system has been exposed! In matters of a civil nature, that system works itself pure by rules drawn from the fountain of justice : in matters of a political nature, it works itself pure by rules drawn from the fountain of freedom."

"The executive power is better to be trusted when it has no screen. Sir, we have a responsibility in the person of our President; he cannot act improperly, and hide either his negligence or inattention; he cannot roll upon any other person the weight of his criminality; no appointment can take place without his nomination; and he is responsible for every nomination he makes... far from being above the laws, he is amenable to them in his private character as a citizen, and in his public character by impeachment."

"To the Constitution of the United States the term SOVEREIGN, is totally unknown."

"Man, fearfully and wonderfully made, is the workmanship of his all perfect Creator: A State; useful and valuable as the contrivance is, is the inferior contrivance of man; and from his native dignity derives all its acquired importance."

"Let a state be considered as subordinate to the people: But let everything else be subordinate to the state."

"By a State I mean, a complete body of free persons united together for their common benefit, to enjoy peaceably what is their own, and to do justice to others."

"No record of her high descent There needs, nor memory of her name; Enough that Raphael’s colors blent To give her features deathless fame."

"Really and truly—I’ve nothing to wear."

"A weapon that comes down as still As snowflakes fall upon the sod; But executes a freeman's will, As lightning does the will of God; And from its force nor doors nor locks Can shield you,—'t is the ballot-box."

"From every place below the skies The grateful song, the fervent prayer,— The incense of the heart, —may rise To heaven, and find acceptance there."

"We understand the need for assurances to the countries in the East. If we maintain a presence in a Germany that is a part of NATO, there would be no extension of NATO’s jurisdiction for forces of NATO one inch to the east."

""You must tell them that there must be a new union or there will be chaos," he [Shevardnadze] implored me. That evening, when I hosted republic leaders for dinner — a mixed group of presidents, prime ministers, and foreign ministers — I saw around the table and in the conversation a microcosm of the post-coup Soviet Union’s potential — and its problems. Whatever euphoria that they felt with their post-putsch independence declarations had given way to a marked degree of realism. "Independence sounds nice, but we have to live, and we have to be practical," observed the Prime Minister of Moldova, Valeriu Muravsky. That was the persistent theme that I heard from every one of the republic leaders, with the sole exception of the Georgian Prime Minister, Vissarion Gugushvili, though even he spoke of the need for economic cooperation once Georgian independence was recognized internationally."

"My view is that you don't just talk to your friends. You talk to your enemies, as well. And the diplomacy involves talking to your enemies. You don't reward your enemies necessarily, by talking to them if you're tough and you know what you're doing. You don't appease them. Talking to an enemy is not, in my view, appeasement. I made 15 trips to Syria in 1990-1991 at a time when Syria was on the list of countries who are state sponsors of terrorism. And the 16th trip, guess what? Lo and behold, Syria changed 25 years of policy and agreed for the first time in history to come sit at the table with Israel, which is what Israel wanted at the time. And, thereby, implicitly recognized Israel's right to exist. Now, all I'm saying is that would never have happened if we hadn't been sufficiently dedicated that we were going to keep at it."

"Our cause is just, Our union is perfect."

"Then join hand in hand, brave Americans all! By uniting we stand, by dividing we fall."

"It is inseparably essential to the freedom of a people that no taxes be imposed on them but with their own consent, given personally or by their representatives."

"Kings or parliaments could not give the rights essential to happiness, as you confess those invaded by the Stamp Act to be. We claim them from a higher source—from the King of kings, and Lord of all the earth. They are not annexed to us by parchments and seals. They are created in us by the decrees of Providence which establish the laws of our nature. They are born with us; exist with us; and cannot be taken from us by any human power, without taking our lives."

"Let us take care of our rights, and we therein take care of our property. 'Slavery is ever preceded by sleep.'"

"Honor, justice and humanity call upon us to hold and to transmit to our posterity, that liberty, which we received from our ancestors. It is not our duty to leave wealth to our children; but it is our duty to leave liberty to them. No infamy, iniquity, or cruelty can exceed our own if we, born and educated in a country of freedom, entitled to its blessings and knowing their value, pusillanimously deserting the post assigned us by Divine Providence, surrender succeeding generations to a condition of wretchedness from which no human efforts, in all probability, will be sufficient to extricate them; the experience of all states mournfully demonstrating to us that when arbitrary power has been established over them, even the wisest and bravest nations that ever flourished have, in a few years, degenerated into abject and wretched vassals."

"If it was possible for men who exercise their reason, to believe that the divine Author of our existence intended a part of the human race to hold an absolute property in, and an unbounded power over others, marked out by his infinite goodness and wisdom, as the objects of a legal domination never rightfully resistible, however severe and oppressive, the inhabitants of these Colonies might at least require from the Parliament of Great Britain some evidence, that this dreadful authority over them has been granted to that body. But a reverence for our great Creator, principles of humanity, and the dictates of common sense, must convince all those who reflect upon the subject, that Government was instituted to promote the welfare of mankind, and ought to be administered for the attainment of that end."

"We are reduced to the alternative of choosing an unconditional submission to the tyranny of irritated ministers or resistance by force. The latter is our choice. We have counted the cost of this contest, and find nothing so dreadful as voluntary slavery. Honour, justice, and humanity, forbid us tamely to surrender that freedom which we received from our gallant ancestors, and which our innocent posterity have a right to receive from us."

"With hearts fortified with these animating reflections, we most solemnly, before God and the world, declare that, exerting the utmost energy of those powers, which our beneficent Creator hath graciously bestowed upon us, the arms we have been compelled by our enemies to assume, we will, in defiance of every hazard, with unabating firmness and perseverance employ for the preservation of our liberties; being with one mind resolved to die freemen rather than to live as slaves."

"These excellent Letters,‭ ‬which contain much seasonable instruction,‭ ‬are said to be written by John Dickinson,‭ ‬Esq.‭ ‬the same eminent Author to whom thanks‭ ‬were most deservedly given,‭ ‬by the Committee for the‭ ‬Province of Pennsylvania,‭ ‬on the‭ ‬21ft of July last, “for the great assistance they had derived from the‭ ‬application of his eminent abilities to the service of‭ ‬his country,‭ ‬in”‭ (‬another‭) “‬performance,‭" s‬ince‭ ‬published,‭ ‬intitled,‭ “‬A new Essay‭" (‬by the Pennsylvanian Farmer‭) “‬on the constitutional Power of‭ ‬Great-Britain over the Colonies in America,‭" &c. ‬And the said Committee,‭ ‬with great justice and propriety,‭ ‬recommended that performance,‭ “‬as highly deserving the perusal and serious consideration of‭ ‬every friend of liberty,‭" &c‬."

"Old Grimes is dead, that good old man We never shall see more; He used to wear a long black coat All buttoned down before."

"Fill every beaker up, my men, pour forth the cheering wine: There’s life and strength in every drop,—thanksgiving to the vine!"

"You don't have to pass an IQ test to be in the Senate."

"Obviously, you have to know accounting. It's the language of practical business life. It was a very useful thing to deliver to civilization. I've heard it came to civilization through Venice which of course was once the great commercial power in the Mediterranean. However, double-entry bookkeeping was a hell of an invention. And it's not that hard to understand. But you have to know enough about it to understand its limitations — because although accounting is the starting place, it's only a crude approximation. And it's not very hard to understand its limitations. For example, everyone can see that you have to more or less just guess at the useful life of a jet airplane or anything like that. Just because you express the depreciation rate in neat numbers doesn't make it anything you really know."

"... much of what is taught in modern corporate finance courses is twaddle."

"The first $100,000 is a bitch, but you gotta do it. I don’t care what you have to do — if it means walking everywhere and not eating anything that wasn’t purchased with a coupon, find a way to get your hands on $100,000. After that, you can ease off the gas a little bit."

"The hard part of the process for most people is the first $100,000. If you have a standing start at zero, getting together $100,000 is a long struggle for most people."

"You have to learn all the big ideas in the key disciplines in a way that they're in a mental latticework in your head and you automatically use them for the rest of your life. If you do that, I solemnly promise you that one day you'll be walking down the street and you'll look to your right and left and you’ll think "my heavenly days, I'm now one of the few competent people in my whole age cohort." If you don't do it, many of the brightest of you will live in the middle ranks or in the shallows."

"Our investment style has been given a name - focus investing - which implies ten holdings, not one hundred or four hundred. The idea that it is hard to find good investments, so concentrate in a few, seems to me to be an obvious idea. But 98% of the investment world does not think this way. It's been good for us."

"You can't give the average Wall Street CEO really lenient standards of accounting and expect the figures to be good. The accountant is like the referee in soccer. The accountant has to be the adult that prevents the mayhem. Accountants don't want to be the adults because it causes liability, it causes responsibility, it causes difficulty ... they failed us terribly."

"How do these super-smart people with all these degrees and higher mathematics end up doing these dumb things? I think it's explainable by the old proverb that to the man with a hammer every problem looks pretty much like a nail. They've learned these techniques and they just twist the problem so it fits the solution — which is not the way to do it."

"Neither Warren nor I have ever used any fancy math in business — and neither did Ben Graham who taught Warren. Everything I have ever done in business could be done with the simplest algebra and geometry and addition and multiplication and so forth. I never used calculus for any practical work in my whole damn life — and I was a perfect whiz at it when they taught it to me."

"I see [Bitcoin as] an artificial speculative medium that people are buying just because they think they can sell it to somebody else at a higher price, even though it inherently has no intrinsic value. So, I regard the whole business as anti-social, stupid, immoral. [...] I regard the thing as a combination of dementia and immorality, and I think the people that are pushing it are a disgrace."

"... I regard it as a cinch that a great nation will in due time be Rome. ... Where is Rome? Where is Britain in its heyday? They all pass and so our turn is bound to come some day."

"You don’t have a lot of envy, you don’t have a lot of resentment. You don’t overspend your income, you stay cheerful in spite of your troubles, you deal with reliable people, and you do what you’re supposed to do. And all these simple rules work so well to make your life better. And they’re so trite."

"I don't think that she knows who Adam Smith was."

"What I would say is the single most important thing, if you want to avoid all the stupid errors, is knowing where you're competent and where you aren't. And that's very hard to do because the human mind naturally tries to make you think you're way smarter than you are."

"You fix what can be fixed, and what can't be fixed you endure."

"We don't want to make our money selling things that are bad for people."

"Show me the incentive and I will show you the outcome."

"Charlie's mind has a greater span than I do. He has read more biographies, hundreds per year. He soaks them up and remembers [them]."

"Blue Chip's business model eventually became obsolete, and its sales slowly declined over the years, from $126 million in sales in 1970 to $1.5 million in 1990. But, in its heyday, under Charlie's direction, Blue Chip used its surplus capital to purchase 100% of See's Candies and 80% of a finance company called Wesco, which owned a savings and loan. Just as Warren had taken capital out of Berkshire's failing textile operation to buy a thriving insurance company, National Indemnity, Charlie took the excess capital out of Blue Chip Stamp and invested it in profitable businesses. Eventually Blue Chip Stamp was merged into Berkshire Hathaway."

"It is a revolution; a revolution of the most intense character; in which belief in the justice, prudence, and wisdom of secession is blended with the keenest sense of wrong and outrage, and it can no more be checked by human effort for the time than a prairie fire by a gardener’s watering pot."

"First, I charge a retainer; then I charge a reminder; next I charge a refresher; and then I charge a finisher."

"It has come to the point where the North must exterminate us or agree to separation… The war may still go on for a long time. However, we count on the financial exhaustion of the North. I admit to you that we don't understand how the government's credit has been maintained up to now."

"All around us there are tangible evidences of the industrial activity of our people and the growth and development of our State, and with national legislation not unfavorable to us, the future of Oregon is full of promise of a rich inheritance to its inhabitants."

"The vast material resources of Oregon furnish a solid and enduring basis for the spirit of enterprise that animates our people, and for that wonderful superstructure of vigorous and thrifty statehood which we are rearing here on this western shore of the continent."

"We are now entering upon an important period of our development as a State. Our infancy as a Territorial Government has passed into history. Our early struggle as a young State of the Union has already turned the point of successful trial,and we now stand in the threshold of coming strength and power. With a territory ranking among the largest of the sisterhood, with a soil equal to the best, and a climate of a salubrity and healthfulness enjoyed by none other,with resources for the employment of industry of great variety and extent, it would seem difficult to predict for Oregon anything short of a most successful career. In fact, with a creditable management of public affairs, nothing stands in the way of our prosperity."